what it is like to (not) sleep at night – illustrated with crappy pictures™

INTRO: Here is installment #2 in my “real life parenting” series. I draw crappy pictures because I don’t have actual photos of these experiences. Here goes…

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I’ve always been jealous of my husband’s ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. It isn’t his fault that he is a deep sleeper. But I can’t help it. It totally pisses me off.

We climb in bed at 9:00PM…

By 9:03 my husband is completely asleep.

I’m nursing my youngest and haven’t even begun to think about sleeping yet. I lay there motionless, pretending to be calm and relaxed so he’ll fall asleep. Anyway, I’m cold since the blankets aren’t on my top half.

So I pretend to be sleeping but really I’m going over the “to do” list or re-winding conversations from earlier. Or having pretend conversations that might happen in the future. On a good night the baby settles pretty fast.

Finally, around 10:00PM he is asleep. Success! He rolls over and my body is my own for the first time all day. I can pull up the blankets a little. I close my eyes for real. Start to relax and let go…

Until I hear a noise.

Becoming a mama has given me heightened spidey senses. A tiny noise a mile away wakes me up like a mama bear, ready to protect her young.

My husband did not inherit this quality with parenthood.

Wide-eyed, I strain my ears to hear. This particular noise is one I’m all too familiar with.

Enter 4.5 year old. I thought he was asleep by now. He has no concept of being quiet while people are sleeping, so he barges in loudly asking for random shit. I have to jump out of bed and rush him out of the room so he doesn’t wake the baby. This attempt is successful about 50% of the time. Lets assume it was successful tonight.

So now I’m in the hallway, hearing my 4.5 year old’s demands and bargaining with him. Water, bathroom or covers on or off, etc. I have no real power here, I’ll agree to anything to get him back in bed quietly. When he has exhausted all the standard stuff, he finishes by needing to tell me something very important, like “I saw a rock today on the ground and it had dirt on it and I forgot to tell you! ” and I steer him back to his room.

By the time I head back to my bed, the baby has turned into a starfish. Legs and arms stretched out, taking up my whole side of the bed.

I slide next to and under him being careful not to wake him. I can’t move. I’m scared to breathe. This is a very delicate situation. I have to move him. I have to risk it.

The first attempt to move him just makes it worse. He swings both arms and legs on top of me. He is stirring now so I can’t move a muscle. I’m like a statue while I listen to his breathing to hear when he is in a deep sleep again to move him.

Finally, it is midnight and I’ve successfully moved him. I haven’t heard my 4.5 year old in a while so he must be asleep too. I fall asleep for the first time!

Until I’m woken by a foot in my eye. I try to ignore it. A foot in the eye is a sign that he is starting to move into a lighter sleep. This means he’ll wake up completly to nurse soon.

So we’re nursing again. I’m half asleep but not mostly just feel like a zombie. My mind wanders to weird stuff. I close my eyes and see flashes of people and places like a dream except I’m awake.

Finally he settles again and rolls away. It is 2:30AM and I can finally get some real sleep! It is very unlikely that either kid is going to wake me up again. Sweet sleeping bliss.

Until the two cats come in at 5:00AM and announce that they are hungry. They continue make this announcement every 15 minutes or so. I ignore them. But they know. They know I’m their target. They know I’m awake no matter how hard I pretend. They finally settle on my feet so that they will be alerted the moment I stir. I get a few more minutes of sleep.

Only to be woken at 7:00AM for a new day. My 4.5 year old skips into our room and gleefully sings, “Morning! It’s morning time!” Which wakes up the baby who replies with “Mownin!” Then they start jumping on our bed.

Even this doesn’t wake up my husband. He is sound asleep. Sometimes I look at his chest rising and falling with his breath to confirm that he is alive before unleashing the kids on him.

“Go see Papa” I grumble.

They have to poke his head and repeat “Papa!” over and over and he finally wakes up.

And what is the first thing out of his mouth? The one and only thing I DON’T want him to say?

920 Responses to what it is like to (not) sleep at night – illustrated with crappy pictures™

i see the funny side, but am so worried and frightened that I share the road (and I literally mean the road) with these mums. This is not a joke. Grow some mum balls. A child needs to know that bed time is bed time, and they sleep. They don’t come in to discuss things in the night, unless it is an emergency. The baby should be in a cot, and once they are on solids, and taking them well, do not need to be nursed at night. That is the time to finally teach them to sleep through. FOR EVERYONE’S sake. Tired children can’t learn the same way others can. Mums and Dads need their sleep so they make good decisions, maintain a healthy relationship and have the time and patience for the hard road of parenting.

Wow Elayne, just wow. Being a parent means certain sacrifices for the sake of our babes. Neglecting your children to get more sleep is not necessary, I’d say wake up the hubs instead, they need to share in the work. Babies DO need to nurse at night, they don’t do it to irritate you or cause lack of sleep, it’s a need and we are there to provide it. As for the lil ones, him coming in wasn’t harmful by any means, a lil inconvenient when tied to all the other wakeful moments but in itself no big deal and should be treated as such.
Parenthood is many things and an opportunity to laugh after the fact at moments like this, makes it go easier and keeps a smile on your face.

Amen Nichole. My youngest *almost 3 months old* sleeps with me part of the night on my chest. When I start to doze off, before I fall asleep I will put him in his bassinette beside me or at the foot of my bed in his bassinette. My daughter (2yrs old), she just had a traumatizing experience at the pool (her first time swimming) last week so now she is having nightmares and wakes up in the middle of the night and comes into bed with me. I am NOT going to turn my daughter away nor my son. Call me a good parent, bad parent or judge me whatever you want. MY role as a mother is to show my children love, affection and guide them in life. Moments like these I adore. I might get a little annoyed at times because the lack of sleep but I’m still able to look at the cuteness in moments like these, and am still able to make adult decisions (correct responsible decisions) for my children and myself. Plus that’s what nap time is for if your little one takes naps like mine. I take my nap with them so I can get that extra hour-three hours of sleep. Being lucky enough to be a stay at home mother I work my days around my children, and when they sleep I take that opportunity to get in a little nap as well.

Not if the kid can really respond with “mownin” like the story describes…I haven’t seen a baby that can talk that should still be nursing at night. While I agree we parents should be there for our children I think it’s just as healthy to set boundaries that night time is for sleeping. Sometimes my kid is sick or had a rough couple of days and he can sleep in our bed but that is not the norm. Catering to their every need (especially at night) is not the same as being there for them and it only reinforces the behavior.

Jw, babies can nures as long as the mother wants(up to the age of 4) and it is the mothers dission when she stops nursing. And being their for your child all of the time is your responsibility and joy.

If the baby is saying “mawnin'”, then he really doesn’t NEED to nurse at night anymore. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with what Elayne said, children aren’t being neglected. That being said, I would never dream of criticizing another parent’s choices (unless they were undeniably harmful), because we all have our opinions and we’re all doing the best we can.

Nursing is a need just as much as a cuddle is. It’s not just food. I thought everyone knew this by now??? We’re not in the 70’s anymore.
Would you say that because your’e an adult you don’t need cuddles anymore? That you don’t like comfort and love and care and attention? That’s what mums are giving their children when they are nursing. And there’s no age limit really. It’s up to the mother and the child, not you or anyone else.

There are different ways used by different parents to raise their kids. Elayne’s method might work for others, while co-sleeping will do wonders for others. Personally we use both, we start co-sleeping with our babies and 2-3 hrs later move the baby to their cot. We use both bottle feeding and breast. While the baby is still in bed with us the mom will breast fed, if they are in the cot I will get up and bottle feed. I try the best I can to assist the wife, especially when I’m off duty the following day, and she’s still on maternity leave. If we are both back to work, we do the best to rotate as previously mentioned. We are lucky that are kids took both bottle and breast, I know some don’t, and this is when mothers struggle the most since waking the dad won’t really help since the baby needs to feed.

Nicole… you’re the type of woman that is the problem….. Elayne is 100% correct, the kids need to be in their own beds and should NEVER sleep in the “marriage bed”…. You use the word “neglect” which is strong language…. If you train/teach a child to sleep on their own by NOT tending to every whimper and whine…. They WILL SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT… I have Three adult children in their 20’s and all of them were in cribs then in their own rooms by 3-6mo …. It’s women like you who believe they must be in 24/7 “mommy-zone” which sets a paradigm that mothers must “sacrifice”….. Thats nonsense, you coddle the child and they become coddled adults….

There are no rules for motherhood. If it feels right then it is right. I wouldn’t feel very happy if I forced my children to be in their own beds when they need to be near to me. You can’t show your child too much love and attention in my opinion. Children that are loved grow up to be loving adults.

Actually fatherofthree its been proven that answering your babies needs by ‘sacrificing ‘ your own for a very small amount of time in the scheme of bringing up children makes the child more independent in the long run. There are multiple studies that show this. Perhaps you should do some research into it as it really is very interesting! I don’t see nurturing my child as a sacrifice. Perhaps you felt left out of the ‘marriage bed’ that’s why you feel the need to enforce this. If you let a baby cry it out all your teaching them is that no one is coming. Therefore they stop crying. they may still wake as frequently you just don’t know it! Also not all children need as much sleep as others being individuals! You can’t force a baby/child to sleep for longer than they need. Women who choose to co slept aren’t a problem it’s people believing they have all the answers and everyone else’s parenting choices are wrong except theirs. What works for one doesn’t work for another so why don’t we all grow up stop picking holes at each other and move on get a hobby or better still spend this time with your babes!! Mine is asleep on me feeding while I’m writing this. Enjoy them before they are all grown up

No sleeping in the ‘marriage bed’ and similar other crap..?
Hints of misogyny in your tones with your judgement of how mothers do their job. I wouldn’t throw round phrases such as “It’s women like you…” in such a cavalier fashion if I were you, lest you find yourself on the receiving end of a “It’s men like you..” rebuttal. (And trust me, I could think of several fillers for that phrase on the spot). Who are you as a man to tell a mother how she should nurture her child?!
For you, and the others that are saying the toddler shouldn’t nurse and the preschooler shouldn’t be gently and lovingly redirected to bed in the middle of the night – look up attachment parenting. Educate yourselves.

Wow…NEVER sleep in the marriage bed?….It’s been we’ll proven that co sleeping is beneficial for child and parent. It saves on sleep among other things. And mother hood is 24\7 and life long. Even once children are in their own beds mom is always mom at always alert to her children.

Yikes. As if the term “marriage bed” weren’t bad enough, your insistence that parenting isn’t a 24hr job but should just stop overnight is ignorant at best. Congrats on however you raised your kids 20+ years ago, but any mom who feels she has to compete with other moms based on an arbitrary internet-based “paradigm” is just missing the point entirely.

Sorry father of three but it’s also the 20 year olds of the world that have a lot of mental health issues due to their infant up bringing.
Some babies need to be fed in the night for a long period due to all sorts of health reasons, but to ignore them during the night is ridiculous, should your wife do the same to you only at night, as an adult, would be confused, hurt, angry and utterly dejected. Don’t do it to a baby.

I agree fatherofthree.
I understand parents all have different choices with parenting but I’ve noticed a trend in children who aren’t taught right and wrongs from early on (that includes things from no, all the way up to when bed time is)
Both my children were sleeping through the night by about a month old. The doctors told me how amazing and lucky I was.
No, I simply kept my babies up all day (as much as I could) and have a feeding right before “bedtime” and they slowly slept longer and longer till they would sleep for 8-9 hours before they’d wake in the morning.
It’s all about when we start teaching our children what things are and how to do things.
If you’d rather be completely exhausted every night, then go ahead and let your child sleep in your bed and play around at night.
It is okay to tell them a stern no once and a while…
My two year old says please, thank you, excuse me, and your welcome without being prompted. So obviously a bit of tough love isn’t hurting her.

Amen!! I feel as though monthers who nurse and complain are looking for attention and the “how do you do it? or you are super mom” comment… Please. Other mothers do it every day without saying anything.Not only that, but if you are complaining about not getting sleep while co-sleeping and nursing and that dad doesn’t pitch in, take a look in the mirror becuase you made that choice. I do not agree with AP parenting at all. My 2 kids both slept through the nicht at 7 & 5 weeks, in their crib by themselves and have since then, which are now 5 & 3. They are not neglected at all and are very much loved, you don’t have to be physically attached to them to show your love, kids need to grow and learn on their own, sometimes, they just want to be left alone. Rant over 🙂

Not every child fits in your cookie cutter fatherofthree. I had a sleep walker who at 2 years old unlocked and went out the front door and stood on the deck in -30 weather in nothing but a night gown! I slept sounder with her next to me for a long while after that. But of course I am so glad to see that you are 100% sure that Nichole is wrong and Janne is wrong. Funny because I lived a life similar to this and my kids are turning out to be well adapted very independent adults. Maybe you should lighten up a little what’s good for the goose is NOT always good for the gander!!!!

Fatherofthree you are dead on. Unfortunately the mother of my children did not agree with any of my parenting techniques and we constantly fought. All in past tense. The marriage ended in divorce because we couldn’t see eye to eye on these “little” that we hear about but ignore until we have children of our own

Fatherofthree – the term “marriage bed” speaks volumes. I wonder how your own children remember being trained not to seek you out at night, and I further wonder how they will deal with their own offspring?

I always think it is strange and sad when people criticize the parenting styles of other parents. Everyone does what they think and know to be best for their own families. Nobody can make decisions for anyone else’s life! As for me I personally don’t understand the concept of being with your child (especially under 1 yr) every minute of the day and then once it hits night time putting them in a dark, scary room all by themselves. They aren’t ever allowed to be alone during the day but then they are supposed to cope all by themselves through the night? I always let my children crawl in our room and sleep on the floor if they wake up in the middle of the night scared. Mostly because I remember what it was like to be scared and I feel it is unnecessary to put my children through that. I understand the reasoning behind keeping the kids out of the marriage bed, but it isn’t for me or my family. I don’t agree that children will become coddled adults if their parents let them in their room at night. There are many other factors that would contribute to this.

So…kids no longer need love and comfort after sundown? Is it a time thing though? Because if I go by this theory I can get longer parenting breaks in the winter when the nights are longer and I can tell them to go away, they obviously don’t need anything, it’s night time! Even at 4 in the evening around here!

Oh, and this is also great news for parents in Alaska where they live in the dark for weeks on end! They don’t have to do any parenting at all for months! The sun’s not out! Hurray!

(that was sarcasm by the way)

My kids will always know that they can come to me if they need me. No matter the time of day. I’m not their best friend, I’m their parent, but that also means I’m there for them if they feel insecure, or need my help. I will lovingly show them how to become independent in their own time, not mine.

And science will back me up when I say it produces much stronger independence later on, and I can even demonstrate that in my own two children. One I parented more your way, one I used more AP style and the older one is clingier than the younger one.

But I suppose your experiences are the only right ones in the world. smh

Agreed. also why bitch about the cats? CLOSE YOUR DOOR. Do you knwo what pet dander does to health? and general cleanlyness of living? we have a dog in the house but the upstair/MASTER BEDROOM is OFF LIMITS. kick the cats out and they will survive like they have done for millions of years

Lol @Another Mom, you want to take credit for your children sleeping through the night at a month old because of your parenting style well I can tell you that has squat to do with it! I have parented both of my children the same, the first slept through the night from the day we brought him home, both by cos leering and in a bassinet as well as took long naps during the day. My second on the other hand would not sleep longer than 20 min with out physical contact, Co sleeping is the ONLY way we could get sleep. Now at 3 and 1.5 my oldest still is an amazing sleeper, sleeping 12 hrs at night, my daughter just a few months ago was weaned (which took an amazing amount of work but was easy with my son) and still doesn’t consistently sleep through the night and will climb into bed to snuggle in the middle of the night.

And trust me I’m a parent that says no and sets boundaries but every child is different, their needs are different and finding a way to meet their needs is what parenting is about. Finding a way to accommodate their wants in a way that makes the whole family work is what great parenting is about.

I guess I coddled all 4 of my kids, because I nursed them when they were hungry, hugged them when they cried, let them sleep with me when they had nightmares, put their needs before mine and loved them more than life itself and even loved them more than loved sleep. My kids were born in the 80’s and 90’s. My 3 girls weaned themselves when they were ready, between 9mos and a year. My son didn’t wean until he was 4 yo. He has autism. So developmentally he was only 2 yo and he didn’t talk so I guess that makes it okay. Research now shows nursing an autistic child for a prolonged time helps them neurologically. He is a well spoken adult that can hold a job and drive a car and he has a girlfriend. He also still has autism. My daughters are loving, independent, secure, contributors to society. The two eldest with children of their own. This is what worked for my family. It is not for everyone. If your way worked for you, great, but it is not the only way. And I wouldn’t trade my middle of the night baby snuggle memories for anything.

Fatherof three you remind me of Gru ( Despicable Me)when he first got the children from the orphanage. He gave them rules like they’re on a military camp and treated them like pets that needs to be trained. But in the end Gru was changed and softened by the kids. I wish you’ll end up like Gru did. Loosen up, your kids will grow up as confident, responsible and independent adults if they will feel loved and secured now.

Oh dear…….I’ve had 3 babies in the “Marriage Bed” for varying amounts of time [sometimes because they were ill, sometimes because they couldn’t settle and sometimes because it just seemed like the best aand most natural thing to do……best place if you want any sleep and your baby doesn’t comply to some theoretical ideals. At a rough guess, the total time I spent with children in my bed was about 800 days maximum……so that means I’ve had over 60 years without them……..great! PS that includes grandchildren whom I didn’t breastfeed BTW ;(

Exactly my kids sleep through the night all 3 of them. I mean if they are screaming I go in there someone might need juice or a nightmare. I actually heard my 11 month old tossing and turning but never cried or made a noise she went right back to sleep. My husband works 6 days a week 12hrs a day if I don’t sleep I am a zombie and I don’t have energy to do fun things with them. It’s good for all of us to sleep in our own beds. But different things work for different people.

Babies do not “need” to nurse at night after a certain age. From a medical perspective they do not need it. With that said it is a parents choice to do whatever works for them and their family. To each it’s own is what I say. Personally I believe that uninterrupted sleep is more important for neurological development (for baby that is) and also a no brainer that a parent functions better with a decent amount of sleep, which is very needed with young children who will exhaust you during the day. But again everyone should do what works best for them. No need to judge one way or another.

Sorry, but you’re completely wrong.
Co-sleeping is very dangerous, a recent study identified it as the biggest risk factor for SIDS (sudden infant death). The baby being alone on the edge of the bed is equally risky.
Babies old enough to say words, as the one in the cartoon, do not need to be nursed. A baby should be able to sleep 10h stretches at age 3 even months. Failure to do so is not a result of inability to go without food, but simply improper sleep training.
Regards
Dr m

Biologically speaking, babies are wired to wake up frequently through the night in order to feed (breastmilk is easily and quickly digested, so nursing babies especially need to do so frequently, but all babies need to eat to fuel their rapid growth and development). Actually, all humans are wired to wake up during the night and nap during the day; it is our societal structure that forced us into a pattern of staying awake all day and sleeping at night. In babies, waking is also a survival mechanism. Breastfed babies who co-sleep (that is, sleep in the same room in close proximity to their mothers) are actually the LEAST likely to succumb to SIDS, as the nearness of their mother helps thems to regulate their breathing while asleep. This mother is demonstrating safe bedsharing by keeping the blankets and pillows off and away from baby.

You assume that baby is on the edge of a bed on a frame, but many households that use a family bed put their mattress(es) directly on the floor, reducing or negating any risk of rolling off the bed. The other option is that a bed rail is used on the side where baby sleeps.

Sleeping through the night means going for a stretch of 4-6 hours without waking. Some babies naturally fall into his pattern at a young age, remain there, and never have problems. Some babies start young, then hit certain developmental milestones and develop sleep regression, where they have a very difficult time staying asleep. Some babies wake frequently at the start, then sleep for longer and longer stretches as they age.

All families must find the tools that work best for them. As long as bedsharing is practiced safely, it’s as legitimate a practice as keeping baby in a separate crib or in a separate room. And it’s perfectly fine to do all of these things in the infancy of just one child. 🙂

Also, co-sleeping is simply defined as sharing a room, whether the infant sleeps in the parents’ bed or in his/her own crib/bassinet, and it has been shown the be the safest and most effective sleep arrangement in reducing the risk of SIDS.

I dont know what kind of babies you are talking about ‘Dr M’ that do not need food for ten hours (?!) at THREE MONTHS???? And as for improper sleep training, maybe one should start it while our babies are still in the womb???
You can also continue to nurse your child as long as you feel you want/need to.
I also think you need to update your co-sleeping research, ‘Dr’ M

Are you serious!? How about a mother of a 3 year old and a 7 year old who works AND(gasp!)is a FULL TIME(shock!) college student getting A’s and B’s. I nursed both of my children, co-slept with them and they sleep through the night with no problem. I assure you..Joe..I am not a “glorified babysitter”. I worked on my feet through both pregnancies-bartending until 10 days before I had my son and waited tabled until the NIGHT BEFORE I had my daughter. I was back to work 3 weeks later. I assure you…there is no lazy bon-bon eating here. Oh-Joe…I am going to school for a degree in…just wait..Aviation Science. I will be flying, not attending. So, how about you take your 1900’s, chauvinist, pigheaded attitude and suck it.

This is just supposed to be funny… no need to get so serious and analytical about it. And yes, ideally you do teach your kids right and wrong for bedtime, but they are KIDS and do not always listen the first 15 times they are told. We didn’t need a whole break down on your opinion of parenting do’s and dont’s…

Kids will be kids. I was nearly wetting myself laughing so hard as this is my family too. husbands don’t wake up for nursing… no boobs ha. lighter side of parenting we’ve all been there. if you don’t think so… your lying. or still just very sleep deprived and forgot. brilliant just over these!

Elayne, there is no need for you to be frightened. If they choose to let their children wake up every hour to talk about rainbows and unicorns it is none of your business. Telling another mother to “grow some mum balls” is rude and insulting. The fact that you have those policies for your children is your business and that’s fine, but don’t tell other moms how to parent their children. Kindly, butt out.

I agree that if this lady ever wanted to get some sleep and going to have to put her foot down. Until then she can enjoy catering to get children’s needs and wants at her own expense. It’s still pretty funny

Same here! Babies have healthier brain development when they have mothers and fathers that tend to their needs. I have a clean driving record too and I have been nursing for 3 years straight with two babies that sleep in our bed! Almost EVERYONE I interact with comments on how happy my children are.

Exact same as Marina! Both of my girls are well-behaved, very happy around others and rarely cry. I’m positive it has to do with co-sleeping and nursing. They’re only that little once, and frankly, a few hours of lost sleep is worth being near them. Cherish each day because their hands, feet, etc won’t be the same size tomorrow.
It goes by fast enough.

Jess, Thank you for insulting my parenting and suggesting that I am raising a child who has no moral fortitude and cannot think for herself because we have coslept and practiced extended nursing. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind the next time another random stranger again compliments me on how incredibly smart and polite my 2.5 year old is. I’ll also recall your words the next time she politely thanks me for making her lunch or correctly lines up her magnet numbers and letters in correct order on the fridge. I hope that she’ll be conscientious and clever enough to make it in this world, despite my “questionable” parenting choices.

‘teach them to sleep through’ Fuck me if it were THAT simple!! urgh how about YOU stay off the roads. Youve taken something funny n understanding/supportive to those who are struggling with nights like these EVERY night n made those mums feel even crapper about their unavoidable situation- well done you. So your kids -if you even have them- slept through because you taught n told them too, n didnt do night feeds past 6-7 mnths? and your toddler never woke in the middle of the night, not even to go to the loo or from illness or bad dreams or just sheer ‘ normal toddlerism’ and you grew some balls in order to do all this did you? Wonderful im so happy for you. Grow some balls indeed fgs.. being a mum on little sleep n handling everything else n yet because our kids n babies are just kids n babies were doing it all wrong n need to grow balls to do it right just like YOU did, right? Im so glad you posted n helped me out with that one, your advice is obv golden.

This is the funniest part of the whole story!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your reply is so hilarious and uneducated hahahaha Elayne you should read some Harvard university studies on the benefits of co-sleeping their findings suggest that children whose needs are met through co-sleeping, or cuddles when needed ie not left to scream the house down, are secure well rounded adults with less anxiety, fear and depression compared to children who are parented in the way you are suggesting, why did you have children? to put them on a mantle piece to be played with and controlled at your leisure?? Feel sorry for your children wow, and your judgements are past hilarious feel for your kids have fun 🙂

Yeah, why even have kids unless your wasn’t too spend every living, breathing second with them?!? Sure, catering to the every whim of your small children might leave you so sleep deprived it leads to brain damage, impaired driving or psychotic episodes, but oh, it’s SOO worth it to raise children with no sense of boundaries!

Hahaha! You said that soo right!
For the record (for the ones talking about the studies) children who were taught no early on are also just as happy as those who co-slept with momma.
Keep in mind that while you let your children sleep in your bed you know have to schedule your intamate time with your husband.

Good behavior in children begins in teaching early. It CAN be done. It doesn’t harm the child and trying to teach no to a child who has always gotten yes is a much more difficult road than to just start them off early. 🙂

The author didn’t say she just lay there while her four year old roamed the house doing as he pleased. She walked him right back to bed, and tried to keep him quiet for the sake of others in the house, including herself, and peacefully put him back to sleep.

She also doesn’t say how old the baby is and the excuse that “If they’re old enough to talk they’re too old” bit is getting old. Do you stop giving food, water, and hugs to your kids when they’re old enough to ask for them?

AP doesn’t mean no discipline and no boundaries. It means they are taught in a loving manner, and respectfully because kids are human beings too, and more intelligent than the “Because I said so” crap we’re expected to give them.

Elayne, hehehe yea then we all jumped on unicorns and held hands where no one was never ever tired again……
I just found this great we need a sense of humour as mums, and this is what it really is all about . nothing is structure and perfect especially in perenthood.

As a Mom who has successfully survived much of this crap, I have to say that things are not quite as rigid as you portray them, Elayne. There are no set and fast rules for parenting. And, there is a ton of evidence that points to the way Amber (and I) did it as being particularly healthy for children — bed sharing, returning older children to their beds while alleviating fears and setting boundaries. However, if the way you parented worked for your family — more power to you! Like I said, there is no rule book. Having my boys be on the road to college scholarships and being healthy and well adjusted young men is all I need to see to let me know that whatever we did must have worked out OK. They haven’t killed each other, they aren’t on alcohol or drugs, haven’t gotten anyone pregnant and their Dad and I are still together. I’ll take those all as “wins” at this point.

Moms and dad absolutely need sleep, and in my experience most parents make the choices they do because they get the most sleep that way. Some babies sleep fine in a cot or crib. Some absolutely will not. Some moms sleep right through nursing, and some can’t (some can’t at first and can later). Every kid and every parent is different. If you refuse to acknowledge that babies are individuals, this will be hard for you to handle, especially if you’ve known a baby that sleeps well. Some, due to their own brain chemistry or experiences, just don’t.
And please note that most of what’s keeping this mom up isn’t actually the kids but worrying about the kids. That’s a hormonal factor, and if the baby were in a crib she’d probably still be awake.
All that to say, this mom is doing what works best for her. You may be frightened that she isn’t getting much sleep, but another option might well leave her even more tired.

these are the perks of parenthood…count them as blessings. in few years they will grow up and will not be bothering you anymore! funny how it is okay to have sleepless night after night to finish assignments….and/or party it up yet it is oh so bad to not sleep for our children. Trust me when i say moms do have ‘mum balls’ they use them only when they have to..try hurting my child i will show u my mum balls gladly…

Wow, way to take a lighthearted commentary on motherhood and turn it into a preach-fest. Surely we can all relate to part of this, no matter what our parenting style is, and I think the biggest point being made here is about the hubby being able to sleep through everything and then announcing in the morning that he is so tired. This is funny stuff!

I wanted to do a different approach to parenting but my daughter wasnt having it. I exclusively pump for her because her mouth and my body are just not compatible. Even after a frenulectomy. Yes I tried all the tipd and tricks and LCs. Anyway point is she started spontaneously STTN at 2.5 months and even before that she would wake if I creeped into the bedroom. I think a great deal depends on the childs temperment. That being said I can relate to this post in every other way. I may not be feeding a child all night but I am up pumping at night while my girl and hubby and the cat are snoozing away.

Regarding bedtime, kids are going to push boundaries. It our job, as loving parents, to guide them back to bed. By doing this in a loving manner, and not a harsh one, bedtime will be a welcomed time for a child. If we are harsh with them it will end up being stressful and a fight every night.

Regarding cosleeping and night nursing, it is so beneficial for a baby to cosleep and night nurse. I suggest reading some of these other ladies’ comments, as some of them list the benefits.

It’s great if your method worked for your family, but don’t come on here and judge someone else’s methods.

Elayne, this post made me laugh so hard bc it made light of my reality of motherhood – which is awesome and difficult at times. The “c’est la vie!” attitude brings mommies closer together bc of our shared experiences of these wonderful/challenging times.

Then you came along and ruined it 🙂 most mothers raise children, not little robots.

Elayne, I find it disturbing that you are the only voice of reason commenting here. Children need boundaries set and adhered to so they can learn responsibility. Its unfortunate that the latest generation is being raised by these guilt ridden clingy moms that can’t or wont balance their emotional and physical needs, which are defined by nature not the latest issue of clingy moms magazine, because theyre worried about scarring their self induced over needy nursing at 2 years children.

Day and night are different times. Night time is not for tantrums due to discipline. And a child that doesn’t sleep well has more tantrums and will not learn a darn thing. I have 3 kids. I’m credible… Unlike a couple of ‘know-it-alls’ that like to add their two cents… They have nothing better to do. I loved this article, it’s so true. AND it was true 50 years ago, and it was true 100 years ago!!!!!

Fathers need a voice too.. after all, their “marriage bed” gets taken over as well as their wife. I have seen several AP parenting couples in which the mother is literally attached to the baby, toddler at all times and the father takes the back seat in both relationships. What happens to the husband – wife & father – child relationships?? Speaking from truth, have seen 2 divorces as a result of AP parenting… maybe all you AP advocates should do some research on divorce rates.

Babies and young children, do not have the capacity to learn through reasoning, only by depriving them of yourself, so that the child eventually gives up on their adult, when in fact the adult should be making sure your child is confident in your love for them.

sooo essentially everyone else can have an opinion, but Eliane can not? how fare is that? explain that one to me? Everyone parents differently. Swearing and trying to put Elaine “in her place” (by your wording) is beyond unacceptable! This is a cute post and did make me giggle, until I read how a group of parents (as i do see a few dad posts) degrade those who do not share your opinion.

You know, this reminds me of a swim class. I was listening to a sweet mom of twins relating to one of her daughters having sleep issues (at 4 totally normal—regardless of how the child is “sleep trained”). One of them kept coming to the bed at night so she was explaining why she was a little tired.

The other mom (we shall call her MFM – for “Militant Ferber Mom”) started loudly going on and about using Ferber on both her daughters. She loudly told us it *must* be done to make the children “independent.” Okay, I have no problems with others choosing this method, but it was the way she did it that was nasty. She didn’t know either of us, and Mom of Twins was looking for support—not unsolicited advice. Plus MFM was talking like we were stupid and didn’t know how to raise our kids. But I digress.

Ironically, MFM mom’s oldest (about 10) was being super clingy (per usual) and kept begging for help with her homework while Ferber mom would tell her “Leave me alone” while she blabbed at us and diddled with her iphone.

I totally bit my tongue, but wonder if I should have proudly announced we STILL cosleep with our 4 year old, and that I happily nursed my daughter for years and got more sleep than I ever did when pregnant. I didn’t want to be rude, though.

So everyone gets quiet, and starts disengaging from MFM. Mom of twins excuses herself to check on her dog in her car (probably wanted to escape). MFM mom was giving me a headache with her very loud views so I shut her out by being busy talking to my husband on the phone.

Then everyone regrouped to watch the kids swim. Twin mom’s daughter jumps in. My daughter jumps in and swims back (MFM grumbled my kid was a show-off—whatever). MFM mom’s daughter breaks into extreme hysterics and won’t jump in. As we were getting dressed Ferber Mom continually berated her 4 YO for “being a baby.” I really wanted to punch this woman, but got my daughter dressed as fast as I could to get out of there.

But before we left, my daughter (who neglected to “train independence” to) runs up to MFM mom’s youngest and gave her a hug.

I end it with this. I’ve seen all sorts of people be parents. The best ones don’t need to shove their views on others, because they are actually busy raising their kids and have self esteem. People who don’t have self esteem (or life experience) need to throw their anger on anyone who’s different than them. I’ve seen great natural parents and great “traditional” ones. I’ve also seen borderline (or not) child abuse from both sides. Being disrespectful to others who are just different only shows one’s own lack of self esteem.

I agree. Put the baby in a crib. You should always make sacrifices for your kids when it is for their health and well being. Nursing a baby that’s old enough to talk and jump on a bed… really?? And who is befitting when mom is exhausted and sleep deprived? ? Hey mom, you don’t have to be a martyr. just a good,loving mom who takes care of herself (enough rest and proper nutrition) in order to take care of her kids!

I am astonished at your nastiness and misinformation. Children who bed share thrive at least as much as crib dwelling infants. My child bed shares and is a well rested, happy napping and well slept kid. If you are a parent, you are tired for one reason or another. I am always amazed that when people feel anxious about their parenting choices (forcing kids to sleep in a cot, etc) they choose to judge choices that are the opposite of the ones they’ve made. If you really felt confident about how you raise your kids, you would not be picking on this woman’s good-natured cartoon. It’s nasty and it reveals a lot of insecurity.

We’ll put Leslie!
Seriously the comments on this post are disgusting! I read the first ten of them and was left with the bitter taste of bile in my mouth. As parents we all have different views on how we raise our children and that is okay! We should be supporting each other not arguing over everything. Instead of arguing go play with your kids, read them a book, spend some quality time with your children making good memories with them. I’m sure that’s something we can all agree is beneficial for our children, our families and ourselves! As far as my opinion on co-sleeping vs not, what I do does not matter, because when my children are grown up I hope that they will remember the good quality times spent together and not weather I co-slept with them or not!

I’d rather share the road with a tired mother than a teenager who’s texting and driving. Also, how she parents her children at night is not for you to critique. Quite frankly, I’d much rather my child knows he can count on me whenever he needs me. If that’s at 2 am, so be it.

Oh get a grip. Every one is entitled to raise their kids how they see fit. Who are you to tell anyone anything about raising their kids? Thanks for taking all the humor out of this story…now go get a life

I prefer to co-sleep with my youngest like this mother. She had terrible breathing problems when she was born and it made it so much easier to nurse her! She’s 19 months now and I still nurse her whenever she was to be which is mainly at night because she’s starting to wean herself off. Your comment really upset me though. I don’t “Cater” to my two daughters by any means but I do take CARE of and LOVE them. And if they need something it is my responsibility as their parent to get it for them regardless if it’s day or night!

EarthMother’s, enter into reality. The ‘family bed’ isn’t good for anybody. No one gets any sleep. You depict Dad as snoozing along in his own little world oblivious to your miserable night but no= the constant comings and goings wake daddies too. Kids piss in your bed. They barf. In your bed. They get lain over, some suffocate. This isn’t parenting, it’s wanting to be the chile’s best friend.

Agreed. My kids have never slept in the same bed as us and the results are great. We all sleep they sleep through the night we sleep through the night we are all happy. We just got a toddler bed for our 2 year old and she has been doing great and I think its because she never shared a bed with us.

If they’re snoring all night, they likely have sleep apnea, and are not, in fact, sleeping well or soundly, and probably do wake up completely exhausted. Anyone who sleeps 8 “uninterrupted” hours while snoring most of the time needs a sleep study and probably a CPAP. My husband and I both have them, and while this whole thing still holds true for the most part, he’s at the very least not snoring all night.

This post was amazing because it is SO my house! 4.5 year old, 20 month old… no cats, but I’m 7 months pregnant… so there are extra mommy-potty breaks in the middle of the night. I LOVED the description of trying to crawl back in to bed with the baby and the statue-like poses a mama assumes while trying so hard not to wake the baby! Holding your breath, hanging half out of the bed, hoping that your weak ab muscles hang on long enough to haul your rear end in to bed… after the baby has settled, is quiet and back asleep. sigh. Loved it. Great post!

Oh is that why you have kids? So you won’t die alone? Really? You think that’s a good teason to make HUMAN BEINGS? Just because you’re too selfish to be old and sick without adults who only visit you becAuse of GUILT? Seriously, get a grip. People who don’t have kids have incredibly full lives and are visited in the hospital by people who ACTUALLY WANT TO SEE THEM, not by guilty kids.

Really? How very rude! If you do not wish to have children, that is your decision. You don’t tell others not to have them as well.
Wow, what a mother you would be. Lucky kids that don’t have you as a parent.

Child free, are you lost or something? You’re lurking around a parenting-humor site when you have an opposition to being a parent and to others being a parent? Seriously, get a map, get a clue, get a life.

I only have one kid and sometimes thinking about being able to take a nap with him is the only thing that gets me through the night. Lol. I’m sure it would be a bit more difficult if I had more kids. But I don’t mind leaving dishes for later if it means I get a nap. 🙂

I love the midday nap. I think it is a deeper sleep for some reason and cuddling with your child for a rest is sublime. But I always have to make sure there is coffee ready when we wake up, because she wakes up before I want to!

Yes… a nap… in between trying to settle a baby (takes upwards of an hour) for his own naps, and then trying to clean the house, make meals, take care of the chickens (I DO have a rooster, lol!), and then spend quality time with hubby once he comes home.

Yeah if you try to nap with a 4 year old in the house you tend to wake up to a disaster somewhere in the house. Now I have a almost 5 year old, a 3 year old and a 6 month old. Yeah NO sleep for this mamma.

keep ’em coming! these are great and very very accurate. oh, and i’m lucky, my husband (also a sound sleeper) snores…..giving me a perfectly good excuse to kick him in the shins whenever i’ve been up with the kids all night (which, as you know, is every night!!)

Hysterical! So true! My hubby was against going for a third because of this exact sleeping scene…My little guy finally stopped nursing at night when he was 3, now that he is 9 I miss it sometimes…how crazy is that!? Gotta love hormones!

a) perhaps it would just be easier if I didn’t bother trying to sleep at all, because I felt worse being woken up when I was dead tired than I did when I just stayed awake

b) after 15 minutes of failing to wake up the husband to deal with the crying kid, I finally realised it was actually easier and quicker and less exhausting and frustrating on my part to quickly deal with whatever it was and get back into bed than it was trying to wake up the husband to go do it, thus demonstrating that the universe is fundamentally an unfair place

c) whoever deemed ‘sleep deprivation’ didn’t count as torture had *clearly* never been a new mother

e) sleep became something I obsessed about but couldn’t have – I started seeing what referred to as ‘sleep porn’ everywhere. The cat would just brazenly sleep beside me, teasing me. There’d be bed ads on Tv, torturing me and my involuntary sleep celibacy. Everyone slept, but me, apparently.

f) How is that you can time off work because you have a cold or flu because you are deemed unfit to work but ‘I had a shocker of a night – the baby kept me up and I didn’t get *any* sleep’ is not considered a valid excuse, despite being more unfit for work than any flu I’ve ever had

Oh yes, I went totally and utterly bonkers. And then I got put on antidepressants and I slept like my husband used to. And then *he* complained about sleep or the lack thereof. And I laughed at him, he finally understood the madness too!

I can tell you were sleep deprived when you right this … you skipped “d)”. Haha! I can relate to everything. Particularly the one about just getting up and doing it faster than trying to wake the hubby.

Oh ive done that many, many times, ive even sat there feeding baby on the bed, stared over at him snoring peacefully, gritted my teeth saying ‘I actually hate you right now’ – still never woke though lol

As the angonist Dad in this scenario, I will present my side of things, even though I agree with this story and now have even more heartfelt pity for my poor, nursing wife.

First, I get cat duty, so I must not be THAT deep a sleeper (wife will argue this).

Second, I guarantee that the baby is not the only starfish in the bed. I go to sleep, sleep amidst, and wake up in approximately 10-20% of the bed.

Third, I try try TRY my best never to say I’m tired. Because I know how tired my wife is, and how much waking and nursing she goes through.

Fourth, why is it, and I ask this all the time, but why is it that men can just ‘turn off’ their minds, relax, and cut out the anxiety for the 10 minutes it takes to fall asleep. Women have this ‘think/worry/formulate solutions to every global problem thing whenever they lie down. Calm down. Relax. I know it’s a useless piece of advice that falls on deaf ears, because I tell my wife to relax all the time.

So, after all my defense of my silly gender, please accept a few small pieces of advice for natural sleep-relaxation techniques:

1) Count things. Start with ‘things you can see’, which may not work depending on the dark. then count ‘things you can hear’. Hum of the fridge, creak of the floor, bark of a dog, etc. Just count what your senses are noticing. I find this helps me relax, and makes your mind focus on more than just the worries.

2) Deep breaths. This does wonders for our toddler, too. If she seems to be waking up, I lie next to her and take long, deep breaths, as though I’m asleep. 9 times out of 10 she settles and breaths right along with me. It’s also quite relaxing and slows your body down, too.

3) Read. My wife reads while she nurses, and usually keeps reading for a bit after the baby has latched off and/or passed out. We keep a light on until we’re both ready to fall asleep, and this also helps relax the mind.

I hope you can catch up on rest. One of these years my wife will get a good night’s sleep, too. And if your hubby won’t get up to help with kids in the night… keep an icecube tray next to the bed for… ‘incentive’.

I do the reading thing too! It definitely helps. I just downloaded a reader app on my phone, since it is always right next to me. Turn it on “night setting” so its not that bright and no bedside light needed, and I find that I dont think about all that went on that day, all that I need to do the next day, etc. I just relax with a good book and my baby girl in arms!

Women cannot turn off as easily as men because we process information differently. We’re statistically better multi taskers because of it. You focus on one piece of information or one task at a time. At bed time you focus on “Go to sleep.” A woman processes multiple pieces of information at a time. So she is almost ALWAYS doing more than one thing at a time. So while I packed for my vacation I was thinking, “when the boys wake up I’m going to this and this and this.” “I need to make sure those receipts get where they need to go.” “I need to pay rent before I leave.” “Is that the baby?” “What are we going to do for dinner?” “Take the beef out of the fridge in an hour.” All that goes through my mind in less than 2 minutes. For each of those tasks, an alarm goes off in my head about every ten minutes asking me if I’ve done it. We don’t turn off because if we turn off, those things don’t get done.

From day one, I’ve been a part of the chores involved in getting up to our little lass in the middle of the night. Mostly because my wife has ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ and has issues in getting up, and two because I want to be involved with the whole job of being a dad.

This is awesome, and I feel real bad for all you mums (and dads for that matter) who have multiple kids etc to deal with. In terms of cats…well our two sleep in the lounger with the door closed so that they can’t come down and make a damn nuisance of themselves.

Latest is our little lass is now teething, so that tends to disturb all concerned…but like they say, this too shall pass…and probably way too quick. Like someone further up said, they’re only little once, enjoy it while you can.

Finally to all those who have had their sens of humour surgically removed or who feel it beholden upon them to offer completely bloody useless advice or critique, all I can say is ‘Get a Life’!

I am one of those women, who can and does just drop off.. Lie in bed and sleep, frequently when the baby is nursing, I’ll doze off for a while.. Then move the baby into the Co sleeping cot when she starts sleeping.. It’s great.. But I do starfish accross the bed and the other half is always asking me to move over.. Lol

You sound like my husband. He’d say “Just relax and the baby will too!” How easy for him, lol.

Counting things? That would go like this:
“The fridge is humming, it needs cleaned, we need groceries, what am I going to fix for dinner tomorrow?, I hope we have enough milk left that the kids can have breakfast tomorrow…etc.
The floor is creaking, was that the cat? is the older one awake?, I really need to vacuum, I can’t wait to get hard wood floors, I’m so sick of vacuuming, why won’t hubby vacuum every once in a while?…etc.
Well, crap, the dog is barking again. Everyone is going to wake up. Then I’ll have to start over again. We should have stuck to cats….etc.

The problem is we do count. Everything. And that’s why we can’t just shut our brains off. I wish it were that simple.

lol oh yes!! I can relate to this!!! only add in that my bed is a queen and that i have move my frequent feeder from side to side depending on which boob is up next…I can’t nurse both boobs on one side.

It never ceases to amaze me how man can just turn off their mind, ignore everything and sleep. Maybe that is why they are such good soldiers, they can just drop and sleep anywhere. Now I have three like that, husband and two boys, who all sleep like the dead and am up at the slightest cough, creak of shift of the cat!!

I ready this last night before going to bed and laughed so hard I started crying. My husband was really intrigued as to why I was laughing and he read it and laughed as well. Of course my daughter woke me up three times last night, while my husband slept soundly through it. And like every morning I got up at 5 am with her. I’ll be very interested so see how things change if at all when baby number two is born in August!

my hubby peacefully snoring away now after my 14 month old decided to come and wake me for a bum change and feed has always said to me “but babe, I wake up when he does!!!” Funny that hunny, coz I’m awake at 10pm, 1am, 4am and up at 7am for the day. Yet When I ask him to just make breakfast (soak 2 pieces of weetbix and banana in milk…?!) he reckons get f***ed, thats your job. men just simply can NOT handle the demands of being a ‘mum’ for even an hour, unless they are shown *exactly* what to do!!!

Its really easy to wake someone up by simply placing your hand over their mouth & nose. Usually is so shocking that adrenaline kicks in & he’s AWAKE, then “honey, the baby is calling you, or junior needs to be changed 🙂 evil yes, effective HELL YES! 😉

You wouldn’t die, you’d just go for several days without sleep and then crash out so hard when people try to wake you up to do something you react without waking up. This phase lasts about 10-12 hours, then repeat. 🙂 Still sucks, I was so jealous of the guys but by the end learned to crash out whenever I had the opportunity. Cat naps are better than nothing and as I prepare for my first baby I have a feeling that being a soldier is easier than being a mom.

“And if your hubby won’t get up to help with kids in the night… keep an icecube tray next to the bed for… ‘incentive’.”

Great advice from a husband there!
I can relate to this blog post but must say I have no qualms about waking the husband to do midnight parenting. Thankfully we only have a 4week old waking us (me)now, the 4 bigger kids sleep all night unless they are sick.

you SO said it sister! My kids do sleep yoga too, and it’s my husband, baby and myself in a double bed. I have started sticking my hand and arm inside my underwear so it won’t hang off the side of the bed out of the covers! Our cat was doing the same thing, until I threw her against the wall… I know it is mean, but when you are a sleep zombie, you do ANYTHING for a few more minutes…we got a puppie, who I am crate training…no WAY the puppy is getting into the bed. But the crate training is going so good…. I went out and bought a tiny kitty crate, and now the cat goes into the crate every night, and I think she likes it! Do you look at alcohol and think…if I had just one glass, the baby might sleep through the whole night?? I do.

I’m a dad, and I was the zoned out sleeping Dad above when my son was young. I’d often wake, but not till after my wife had had to go and resolve our sons issue. One night however, my wife had had enough. She let me know in plain language that my failure to wake wasn’t good enough. I said “I can’t help it, I just don’t hear it!”.

The next night I awoke in response to my sons cry before she did, and have subsequently been fairly consistently able to respond to his and my daughters needs as required (I can’t nurse so I don’t respond to my daughter so much). I work all day, so does my wife, we both need sleep equally. So, as much as I am able, I share the nights as I share the days. I don’t think it was ever a matter of not being able to hear the children, it was that I didn’t respond to the noises I heard unconsciously.

Once I’d made the deliberate decision to respond to the sounds my children make in the night I was instantly and automatically able to do so. I’m still able to sleep as I used too, and still don’t wake to creaking house noises.

My hubby was the same way. Now he takes care of everyone else while I take care of the baby. (We have 5 kids). I was pregnant with my 3rd baby when I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea and needed a CPAP machine to breathe at night. (I was snoring so badly that I wasn’t getting oxygen to my brain- therefore waking up exhausted because my body was working overtime trying to keep me alive).

Hubby was sleeping through all the noises while I was constantly waking myself up with my snoring, not to mention when the kids would cry.

After getting the CPAP, I couldn’t hear the kids in the other rooms very well because of the constant airflow through my nasal passages (which includes the ears). Hubby woke up that first night with the kids and was amazed at how much I took care of each night without him knowing that he kinda chewed me out saying there’s no way I shouldn’t have awakened him for help.

Now he takes care of the older kids so I can take care of the nursing one (since he doesn’t have that equipment 🙂
And once nursing is done, we both take care of the kids.
And since I’m still wearing a CPAP machine, if it’s my turn and I haven’t heard the cries, Hubby wakes me and says it’s my turn. And vice versa. Most nights we are both up with our now 1 year old and almost 3 year old for one reason or another.

A suggestion for those that have kids still wanting to join them in bed at night- Hubby and I have allowed them to join us in our room, but they have to sleep on the floor by our bed. WHAT a saver! That way I can still have room on the bed to nurse/help baby and the child still feels loved and helped.

Oh. My. Goodness. My hubby and I just read this out loud together and cracked up!! This is hilariously true for us too, with only one thing different- while I’m adjusting the baby, it’s our dog who decides to spread out starfish-style at the foot of the bed while hubby ZZZZZZZ’s away all night. LOVED the illustrations– probably more hilarious than actual photos! 🙂

Hysterical! I love it! And I also want to punch my husband when he comments on how tired he is. Try not sleeping more than a few hours at a time for TWO FRICKIN’ YEARS, then talk to me about how tired you are, buddy! LOL

My Hubby has gotten better about it, the sounds don’t wake him (I attribute that as much to his having grown up in NYC and me in suburbia as to gender tho, he’s been trained all his life to sleep through stuff that has me up and reaching for the phone to call 911 before my eyes are fully open since he lived in a 2nd floor apartment with the parking lot for the corner bar behind it from the age of 6 until he went to college). I have no compuntions about kicking him to go tend the older 2 ( ages 7 and 4) in the middle of the night and with the uberteething the 12mo has been doing he’s been getting up with the baby several nights per week (after a few good kicks to the shins and sometimes some vociferous swearing on my part). Our elder two did the starfish but perpendicular, feet in daddy’s face and cranium a constant threat to my nasal integrity. THIS one, though, lately wants to nurse that way at 3am – on his stomach, torso at a 90 degree angle to mine with feet toward Daddy. Rotating him wakes him, not rotating makes PAIN (somehow he actually does latch on that way but not a good latch). Oh and he sleeps in the middle, I sleep diagonal so my legs keep him from scootching off the end of the bed, with my head in the €¥£&?!@ Arm’s Reach cosleeper HE’S spent maybe a grand total of an hour unconscious in (kid 2 slept in it sometimes, more after he semi night weaned). Sleep porn. Oh yeah. Totally the right word for it.

so i’m reading this late at night because i finally got my toddler and infant to sleep and i still have things to do before i can try to climb back into bed and not wake the baby. thanks for a great dose of late night suppressed laughter! oh, and we ended up putting our cats outside!

Omg… so funny. It makes me feel better knowing that omnitel the only one show nights go like this… last night I found my 2 year old laying on the floor in the hallway between his room and ours…. really!!!! Kids are crazy. The best part of my mornings is unleashing my 2 year old onto my still peacefully sleeping hubby!!

I have pneumonia right now, and am pretty sick. My husband came home from work early to help out, so I was up at 7 and dealing with crazy 20 month old all morning. But we were napping when he got here, so the husband napped too. Then he watched the kid for 2 hours, laid down on the couch and announced, “I’m tired!” And fell asleep! Seriously, I’d kill him but I’m too weak to do it. No jury would convict me.

I’m a single mom. also have an annoying jack russel who has an overactive bladder and has to go out repeatedly. i know all too well about the holding still and thinking about random things. my baby crawls over to me while asleep or scoots to me and then I can’t move the whole night except for to nurse. When I wake up my back is sooo sore!
The couple times that her dad slept over he slept through everything. even when I yelled at him to take dog out so i wouldn’t have to go outside in my ghetto apts in the middle of the night.

I laughed until I was sobbing. Yesterday morning, my husband awoke from eight hours of sleep and said, “ugh, I’m just exhausted.” I nearly killed him with my bare hands, but seriously, we all know I didn’t have the energy for such an act before my coffee. Besides, I had to get up immediately to fetch oaaattttttmmmmeeeeeaaall and milk!!!! Why do these small people not come with volume switches?! And I’d pay good money to upgrade to the kiddo trim package with the freaking mute switch!

My husband never heard our toddler cry in the night. He would wake up in the morning and say “wow she slept through the night!” and I’d give him daggers and say “Actually she woke up twice”.

UNTIL I ruptured my achilles tendon and couldn’t get out of bed.

Like some magic baton was passed he was the one waking up and I was the one sleeping through all the fuss. I think that deep in their brains men know they aren’t the primary one responsible for dealing with children in the night so their brains don’t bother to wake them up when the children cry.

And I couldn’t believe how quickly my senses turned off once I was assured that my husband was getting up and dealing with our child. By the third night I was rolling over and going back to sleep when he got out of bed, and by the fourth night I wasn’t waking at all. And after that in the morning Id say “wow she slept through the night!” and he would be the one giving me The Look!

Love the pics! They add so much comedy to a scenario that is only marginally laughable when you’re in the middle of it. I am pregnant with my 6th child in 8 years, and (besides the cats) this has been my life every night for the last 8 years! You nailed it, Girl! Thanks for sharing!

LOL! So glad my 4 year old is in bed with us so I don’t deal with the “other kid” waking up XD But foot in the eye? Check. Spidey senses? Check. Cat meowing (in mine’s case, “LET ME IN!”). Check. Starfish? Check. “I’m so tired…” CHECK.

You hit every nail on the head. And they wonder why we are grouchy and tired ;). I loved this! The motherly instinct to wake up at a pin drop is evil. I even wake up with sounds I hear in my half dream.

LOVED THIS!!! This is exactly how my night is, minus the cats, and husband. Husband sleeps in separate bedroom because he can’t sleep with the baby “kicking him”. Add a dog who periodically checks the house with a dangling license, and a 4yr old on my other side. I laughed hard enough to rouse the baby, dog, and 4yr old! Awesome post like so many have already said. BTW, the comments are also hilarious 🙂

Though I am not currently co-sleeping (just not as feasible with twins, though I am still nursing them at 17mo and hoping they sleep through the night soon!), I have in the past and can so relate! My husband loved it too! Here’s to hoping you get some sleep soon!

Hahaha, that is so funny. My hubby is the world’s lightest sleeper so he had to sleep in another room while I coslept. And when #2 came along, I discovered swaddling and sent oldest dd to him if she woke up. Made such a big difference!

But the movements of the baby in bed, those are hilarious. I still cosleep with my three year old and she still does all of that! I am just used to it, I guess. Heehee

Ok, just a suggestion, but I think you’ve cornered a market- you should REALLY write up some more JUST like this- crappy pics too (it’s part of the charm) and get them published. I’m a new mommy and I’d love the chance to feel connected, like I’m not the ONLY person going through this stuff, and then, to get to laugh at it too- genius!!!

Wow. Switch this around and you have me and my ex wife. I’ve never been able to sleep easy. I was ALWAYS jealous of her ability to fall asleep within a ten count of her head hitting the pillow.

Well, when our son was born, that didn’t change. I was the one with the spidey senses lol. Every little noise snapped me to attention. Sometimes, when he screamed for a diaper change or for nursing, she slept right through it. And I got up to change him and if he was hungry, I had to wake her up enough to whip a boob out. Sometimes I don’t think she even woke up xD

And SHE was the one always complaining of being tired when I was the one spending more time with him than she was, plus I worked my butt off in a factory lol.

But, I can’t complain too much. Our son is 5 now and guess what he likes? He likes what daddy likes. Guess who he always wants to hang out with? Daddy. He acts like a demon child for mama, but guess who he listens to without question when only a stare and a pointing finger indicate he needs to straighten up? You guessed it: it’s daddy.

Now we’re divorced and all she ever does when I see him is complain as to how well behaved he is for me.

Sometimes, men have the capacity for such things. Not many of us do. I’ll freely admit that. But we do sometimes. So believe me, to any baggy-eyed zombie moms, i know how ya feel xD (and yes I’ve been a stay-at-home dad before when my ex was working at one point. Been there, done that. I can relate to pretty much everything. Trust me. My ex-wife was the “typical male” of our relationship :P)

And to everyone commenting on guys being able to “turn off a switch and fall asleep almost instantly”…I say I can only WISH. If it wasn’t apparent enough in my last comment, I was the one laying awake, thinking, planning, formulating thoughts, ideas, thinking of all the things I have to do the next day after work…and my ex wife could lay down and be asleep before she could count down from ten and pretty much stayed comatose all night.

I envy that trait. I really do. Sometimes I forget what sleep feels like.

I don’t know which is funnier, the ‘random shit’ children need to tell you right now – my daughter is eight and I still get this, and it takes her painful minutes to formulate just the right sentence too – or the cats that come into the room purring, purring, purring, walking all over you and then sit on your legs and stare at you. And in the meantime my hubby is still asleep. And there’s the moving the toddler from boob to boob mentioned in a post above. This starts at about 5am. When the toddler wants to get up hubby usually does the duty because I reckon I have already taken first shift.

How can he be tired??? He had more than 10 hours sleep. I don’t think I had that much sleep in one night in … I can’t remember when! I am so in awe of 10 hours sleep … how amazing would you feel the next day with 10 hours of unbroken sleep … wow!

Whilst my partner can sleep through a howling baby, the slightest whimper from our aged hound and he’d leap out of bed and let him out for a wee, so division of labour I suppose. It’s sooooo nice to read everyone’s stories and know it’s not just me laying there at 3 am trying to detach 2 year old from boob and roll over to get some sleep. I think it’s when she’s got teething pain it feels like I’m being chewed on all night. Not something you can moan about to many people as there’s the dark secret that you *shock horror* co-sleep and *disgust* that you “still” breastfeed. So it’s nice to a group outpouring of frustration like this and a good laugh about it all.
Thank you!

How about the dark little secret that some of us decided not to breastfeed so that we can be awake and present for their children as they grow up so that they get the best of us! Breastfeeding sounds like a nightmare and never did it. My 2 children are healthy, happy, calm and pleasant people who have been sleeping through the night since they were both 2 months old. Thanks, evolution for allowing my children to be nourished without agony, and thanks to no one for perpetuating the fear-mongering and falsehoods around NOT breastfeeding.

Oh shit. I’m new here. I think I just fell in love with you! I laughed so hard I cried. Literally! This was me with my son (minus the cats). Not so much with my daughter but she’s only 5 weeks old so I fully expect to have that “don’t breath you might wake her” feeling any day now.

This is by far the funniest thing I have seen yet, and it illustrates my night almost exactly. I will say my H doesn’t sleep through all the night-time chaos, but it is amazing sometimes how he can sleep through most of it. Thanks for the laughs!!

OK this is my life, how did you know? Just add 2 more kids… 7,5,3,1 and two cats. ON a good night, I get two hours in a row of sleep, on nights like last night? every hour being woken up I love this post. I’m sad for all of you, but glad I am not alone.
My dh often says he’s tired. I really think I Might try the ice cube thing.

I re homed our cat to prevent him from disturbing our sleep. We have 4.5 in he’s bed in our room so we don’t have to move to listening to irrational converstaions about being cold so needed the fan on. Love this post.

It will explain that “why is it that men can just ‘turn off’ their minds, relax, and cut out the anxiety for the 10 minutes it takes to fall asleep. Women have this ‘think/worry/formulate solutions to every global problem thing whenever they lie down” issue. You’ll laugh…trust me. 😉

This is hysterical……..you have obviously spent a night at my house as you described it down to a tee!!!!! Thank you for making me laugh whole heartedly (and making me realise that I am not on my own here!!!). xxx

This is what nights were like for me, except that we didn’t cosleep so I was climbing out of bed to go and feed my dd in her room. Our dog was the one making noise during the night instead of the cats 🙂 My husband slept through everything unless I pumped and put bottles in the fridge, then gave him the monitor and told him to sleep in the guest room with it. I did this about once a week just to save my sanity!

Hah hah! This is great! When the twins were first born they slept in a bassenett righr by the bedroom door. I had a c section so I figured my husband would understand that I needed help. Pssssht yea right. One would scream to feed, id make a bottle, feed him get him to sleep. Total time one and a half hour. Then, the other one would wake up and I would do it all over again the while night while he slept the night away. Most mornings you would find me laying on the couch with both boys in the little seat bouncer vibrating thing bounce with one hand and one foot,looking like a friggen zombie. He would shuffle into the living room abd say something like “woo, last night was rough,huh?” And it would take everything in me not to beat him with whatever was laying near by. Now the twins are 3 abd nothing had changed except that I get home at 6:30pm abd get up at 5:30 for work…..all while continuing the juggling of kiddos. Good luck gals!

My kids are grown and long past this stage, but I learned several tricks with them and with kids I’ve cared for since.

Rizz the Dad is right – if you “sleep breathe” that baby or toddler will sink back into sleep. Has saved my sanity several ties.

I also learned a trick from my dad- run a light finger down the nose of a baby resisting leep. It makes then close their eyes, and paced repitition also soothes and puts them into that deep sleep.

I still don’t sleep as deeply as I did as a college student, but as the kids got older, my sleep got deeper. Now people can do things around me, in my own room even, and I’m not hearing it. And I fall asleep quickly too- but then by the time I hit the bed, I’ve already dozed off in my livingroom chair. But I still hear the click as the kitchen light cools after being turned off.

So no more little kids, but I do have a dog that knows I can hear him when dad can’t – and so comes and does a subsonic whine right in my face, and is much more persistent than any toddler. So much for a weekend sleep in – dog wants to go out so he can bark at the invisible thing.

So funny!! Haha! Tho, I have to admit, my kids NEVER slept in my bed – I don’t think I could handle it.:) However I can remember sending evil glaces my hubby’s way while he snored as I nursed the chillins in the middle of the night.

Yep, you have it spot on, only I have a 2 year old and 4.5 year old as well as a 5 month old to keep me busy. Two cats as well. The husband now chooses to sleep in the spare room so I’ve done 5 months of night wakings on my own, night in, night out, while I hear him snoring loudly and blissfully through the wall.

I must admit I laughed that the husband offers solutions here – without wanting to sound totally sexist and generalised, that is also par for the course. Solutions! Forget the solutions. I just want a hug and to be told I’m doing a great job once in a while (and a night off would be nice…)

You are like a window into my soul. Thank you for making me feel a little bit saner as I realize that I’m not the only one who does the “fake relaxation” while replaying conversations that have never happened & what route I should take them. And really? What gives with the husbands?? Sleeping jerks! You make me feel warm & fuzzy!!!!!

well, i’m past the baby stage (but i remember!), but i still have the cats. you described my two perfectly!!! and even tho i’m not married, i have a grown daughter in another room. STILL they know I’M the target, too. thanks for the…laugh?

This is SO me! Except that after nursing 6 (usually w/ the toddler sleeping at my feet in the bed)I’ve perfected the art of sleep-nursing. I would DEFINITELY be getting rid of the cats, though. When you have kids, you have to prioritize.

well, i dont think one EVER gets the unbroken sleep after one has had children. because it seems to me that even after youre past the child bearing age, you wake up for various reasons. and you just cant sleep for that long. i’m awake until 11pm every night. and i have to get up at 5am. that’s only 6 hours. and STILL i always wake up on my own between 4am and 4:45am!!! and if i DONT, my cats wake me up for sure between 5am and 6pm. (they know my alarm system!) every now and then, i am so exhausted that i will sleep all night and all day. but not continuously.
so it just never gets better. =(

Omg I totally relate to this. My kids are now 8, 5, & 2 so they’ve grown out of the nursing stage. But I must say, having separate beds is a marriage saver! At least then you don’t have to listen to the husband snoring & enjoying his night while you lay there praying for the little ones to let you sleep thru the night just once!
I think the main think to know is that just when you think it’ll never end and you feel like you want to stick a fork in your husbands neck… Your baby actually sleeps thru the night! Halleluja! Haha
Oh, also if you have a baby gate and your cat is too fat to jump over it (as is mine) block off the area to keep it out of your room, voila! Problem solved!

i might get in trouble if my daughter sees this! but i get the same thing and she’s 27!!!!! hahahahahah!!!! well, it’s not random. but she tells me all about her day and sometimes it is…well….what can i say? all i want to do is go to sleep and she keeps talking!!! she knows she does this and we laugh about it. but still….it never ends!!!

Soooo funny! And so very true. This could be us except 1 baby and 1 cat. Oh and thankfully the Husband DOES hear that same cat puking in the bathroom after I have finally fallen asleep. What a sweetheart for cleaning up that mess! 😉

LOL glad to know I’m not the only one that does that! My husband snores or if I’m in a particularly foul mood that night I’ll kick him and wake him up and say “your turn”. Sometimes it works, and sometimes he’s so out of it he would just have to die if a disaster struck because there is no waking him up.

LOVE this! I read this last night and was laughing so hard I was crying and then asked my husband to read it. He answered with…wait for it…
“I’ll read it tomorrow, I’m just too tired tonight” (?!?!)
Oh, the irony.

Fabulous! This is a perfect combo of my son at 1 year and him now at 3.5, so yeah I get it. The foot in the eye? Oh yeah. Luckily our two bedrooms are connected, so my son can travel back and forth, but we can lock the cats out. But the scratching on the door might drive me bonkers! Funny how we wouldn’t trade all of this for the world, ya know?

This is my favorite comment. The initial blog post that brought all of us sleep deprived, sleep porn victims together was priceless, but this comment is why I’m glad I took the time to read the comments!! Thank you, thank you!! I so needed a laughter break today!

I looove this post!! It is so true! I have had many nights like this. When we had our second, all four of us shared a room at my in-laws house because we were in-between houses. So I completely identify with this post! thank you for being so real about it!

This was my life for seven solid years minus the cats plus an extra child, then I got an 18 month reprieve, and now I am pregnant with #4. Right now it is just the 3 yr old occasionally getting up and needing to be steered back into bed and my bladder, but I am dreading revisting this saga. About a week ago we were helping my mother in law, who had a health incident and the spidy senses came back. The next day I told my husband, “I forgot what this was like and now we are about to do it again!” But it does pass. We also keep blankets and pillows on the floor for the stray child who may come in at night. They know they are to tuck themselves in down there and not wake us up unless they are sick or hurt. It cuts down on the night waking as most of the time the preschool aged visits are just insecurity.

good advice, but our brains are wired to multitask, and it’s REALLY hard to turn it off. I sometimes think ADHD in boys occurs when they are born with the wider whatchamacallit between the hemispheres: a woman’s brain. I think you should offer your wife a nice back rub, foot rub, or body massage. The physical touch/relaxation helps turn our wired brains off. You two will make it! (I raised 4 girls and their dad never changed a diaper. It didn’t last.)

this has to be the funniest thing I have ever read. Mainly for me because it is soooo true!!! I love love love it!! This is every night for me except replace the cats with more children lol..thank you for this!!

A thousand times LOL! I learned early w/my son the importance of a cosleeper to get him from the bed in a short distance to his own space where us moving wouldn’t bug him. Oh and I’d sooo have woken up my husband to take care of kid #2 at the 10:30 mark. I have a few good jabbing maneuvers that get his deep sleeping ass up 😉

Amen to all of that. I’ve often wondered how many other women are doing the exact thing I’m doing at 2:30am as I’m feeding the baby or kicking the cat out of our room. lol! I wish I could sleep like my husband, too, though I am definitely guilty of unleashing the little people upon him in the morning.

Been there too. I am so jealous of my husband. His head hits the pillow and he is OUT within 3 minutes. My life also in your stated crappy pictures, wk for me even down to the 2 cats. Mine come in at 5:30 AM however so I get half an hour more. Genny White Birthnavigators

Great post! My husband can sleep threw a bomb going off. Our 6 month old sleeps on my side of the bed in a portable crib and ya even though he isn’t in the bed with me if I make a sound he will wake up.

I’m the mom now with my son, but when I had my daughter, my husband was the one who got up with our daughter (I didn’t breastfeed her, just EBP). I was working full time, he was in school, and I just would NOT hear her to save a life! I’m sure that the mornings I’d wake up at 5 to go to work, and I’d say- Gosh, I’m tired, I’m sure he wanted to cover my head with a pillow. Now, our youngest… he is the starfish up there. I probably would sleep better if we didn’t co-sleep… but probably not, because then I’d actually have to get out of bed to go feed him, versus just shoving my shirt over my head.

Yeah, women like to feel so poor and undervalued. Ahh ohh. Seems they never grow up. You are adult now, hello! Time to have responsibilities! I guess our husband is the one who provides everything that you haven’t mentioned here.

This is spectacular! I cosleep with my 5 year old and my 8 month old with my 8 year old in a twin pushed up to my bed. No husband, but my nights go a lot like this! Thank you so much for your wonderful pics and descriptions! You made my night that much better!

My son likes to set what I call his “trap”. He puts one arm under me while he nurses so there is no possible way to move without waking him up. After months of not being able to sleep on my back during pregnancy i was really looking forward to a new position after he was born. It’s my own form of torture. Thankfully my toddlers are still in their cribs and can’t barge in though. The sleeping husband is the same…

So funny! There really aren’t enough comics about co-sleeping/ breastfeeding out there. I think this is the first time a “mom” funny made me laugh in that, this is sooo true kind of way (although in our house insert puppy for cat; I still don’t know what possessed me to agree to a puppy….)!
Best of all though, I sent the link to my husband who came home from work and said ” I’ll never say I’m tired again”. Apparently a picture is worth a thousand words 😉 Thanks for the drawings!!

You are so funny. I just discovered your blog and I’m in love with it! Last night as I was sitting in bed next to my co-sleeping 6 mo. old babe and passed out husband on the other side of our cozy bed, I couldn’t help but crack up and smile. This scenario rings true for me too…except for the second child. Not quite there yet. But the nursing, cats, husband and the rest of it I can completely commiserate with! After my husband woke up this morning, after I’d been up in bed with the baby already for 45 minutes playing, and said he had a headache, I made him read this post. We both had a chuckle and laughed because it’s so true. When I went onto your what diapering looks like post, I was literally laughing out loud in tears and almost woke up the baby. Spastic Octopus baby is my baby too!!! Seriously. I’m a stay at home mama, work at home artist, and in general, person who loves to do everything too…so I’m really looking forward to reading your blog! Thanks for sharing 🙂

Brilliant! This is us, too, though right now my 15 mo old has a fever and I have never been so grateful for our continued nursing, as she won’t eat anything else and at least I can keep her hydrated…anyway, we’ve only one kidlet here, but 2 cats, and a 90 lb dog who chooses 4 am to get up and shake herself (cue jingling collar), which rouses one of the cats…Last night, my feverish monkey had just drifted back off when my husband’s alarm when off. For 2. full. minutes. I threw her stuffed monkey at him. 😉 Thanks for the MUCH needed laugh

a.maze.ing. thank you from one honest mom to another!!! we really are just all living the same experience in our own little independent households, aren’t we. the drawings were amazing. capture the craziness of that nighttime blur.

Lol we’ll for me it was cats at 1 am…and I wish I had a woman like that my. Incubater left right away leaving me the great joy of living your art….most mom will tell u sitting up at 230 am feeding your baby is sweet and beutiful… at least I thought it was. It is true sleep is important but we can all sleep when they move out…or at death which ever comes first… remember 50% of all the people who marry end up in divorce or death…u may be one of the lucky ones….

My god this is too funny, you had me crying, it hit home to a tee! You should get a book going with all your stories and crappy pictures…This would be the perfect shower gift for the unsuspecting mother to be!!

Ha ha ha ha. That was SO my life a few years ago. Now, I stay awake working by my own free will. The “crappy” illustrations make it even funnier, especially the STAR FISH and the FOOT IN THE EYE…and so sympathise with the damn cats, too. I used to have four of them.

You and my daughter could be best friends. Only
difference is she just has one son so far, has the
2 cats and also 2 dogs. And a mom (me) and mother-in-law
who are both a little crazy and have both been taken by
ambulance to hosp while staying with them to “help” her with
the baby!! It’s quite an adventure there every day and she
too has a great sense of humor!! Thank you!!!

that was freaking hillarious and so true!!!!!!!!! i especially liked the part about rushing out the older child and shutting him up because he is so damn loud…like that here too…except we all sleep in one room…i have ALMOST attempted to put my hand over his mouth to NOT wake the baby into an all night nursing state.

1st- elbow your husband! Mine doesn’t have a very deep sleep but I sometimes catch him pretending to sleep not to attend to the baby 😉 Luckily or unfortunately our daughter has a very high pitch cry and if she wakes up and is refused nursing (i’m trying night weaning: she’s 27 months) or climbing into our bed (i’ve been trying to get her to sleep in a bed next to ours), the “sirent” starts to ring… In nights I can’t handle it anymore, he pitches in (as it should be). So, ELBOW HIM!
2nd – have you tried keeping your older in bed with you? (if you have to, add another matress to teh side of the bed). It will help in two ways: a) your elder won’t have to seak attention in the middle of the night, because he will already be there; b) you will be more able to switch off the mummy-radar to strange noises in the other rooms, because everyone that matters is in the room.
3rd- For the starfish positioning I can only advise you: if your bb is under 6months you can try to bind him (wrap a sheet to hold arms and legs): he will complaint the first times but will help him feel cozy and sleep more peacefully. If he’s older, as it seems, I can only suggest a bigger bed or trying to keep him in a crib next to you (although you will have to get up to get him when he wakes but at least you don’t have to wake when he moves…)
4th- When you feel he is getting restless because it’s time to feed soon, do not wait until he does! You can feed him in his sleep: that way you don’t have to wake up specifically to feed him, you can try it when you come to bed. This will allow him not to fully wake and he will continue sleeping deeply.
-Cats: 1. get your husband to feed them! As soon as they see it’s him feeding them, their target will change to him. 2. Try leaving food late at night in their bowls so they don’t bother you at dawn. 3. keep them in another part of the house. My cats used to sleep with us but at first I was concerned with fur release to the babies breathing and later because of the cat fights they LOVE to have at 3 or 4a.m. So I keep them in the kitchen and living room area during the night. Sure, they complaint during the first month or so, but they get used to it afterwards. When they “behave” I let them sleep with us, so they’ve understood that if they are quiet they may stay.
Finally, please, please, find some way you can rest; take naps, have someone babysit one or both your kids for one night once in a while because YOU need to rest properly. If you are not well, neither will they be. You will get more anxious and stress-snap during the day and it can be dangerous because one day you might be too tired to really wake up if necessary… All the best!

Like great literature: this is funny and sad and UNIVERSALLY TRUE. I love the part about the tiny noise and mama bear in particular, as well as the trying not to breathe. The anxiety that comes with not getting enough sleep is some of the worst anxiety I know. Thanks for crystallizing the crappy experience we all share!

wow! this blog is the BEST birth control ever! I’ve got an 8 and 9 year old and have recently been getting sentimental over having “one more”! thanks for the re-hash and vivid memories! no more idealizing for me!

I laughed so hard I cried actual tears. Take out the nursing (which I couldn’t do despite trying) and second child and add a dog and a baby with a tendency to wake up EVERY HALF HOUR until he was nearly 2, and you have my life. But funnier, now that said baby is 5.5 and sleeps through the night like a petrified log, just like his father.

Perfect… but you missed the scene where you get stuck outside the bedroom with a sleeping baby and you can’t bring them in because hubby is snoring so loudly it will wake the baby, so you spend half an hour at the door trying to do/say/throw things that will wake up your husband but not the baby, until you eventually give up and go sleep in the chair with the baby.

dude…apparently all moms of 2+ live the same life! I laughed so hard at this and your first installment of real life parenting that I’m literally sweating here! HAHA! Thank you so much for the awesome laugh!

Hilarious! But, it’s so true. My husband is the exact same way. Landon sleeps between us yet I’m the one getting kicked in the face. Landon really enjoys pushing me out of the bed so he can have the middle and my side.

My husband once slept through being vomited all over by our three year old! I’d had issues with his ability to sleep through any drama going on and was fed up with him so I took her to the shower, cleaned her up, and we slept in another room… next I heard from him was many hours later when he woke up… “ah, poo, what’s that stink?”

Oh, Sarah! That sounds even harder…puts the sleeping dad complaint in a bit of perspective. Kudos to you, mama, for nurisng your baby throught the night. Try using a pillow behind your back to support you, and another netween your knees; it seems like extar trouble at first, but you get used to it and it helps your back immensely! Good luck!

this story/real life situation is awesome. well not the sleep part, but i feel ya! i even record my husband’s loud snoring in the middle of the night to entertain myself while i’m awake nursing for the 2nd time already. lol. loved this! a good laugh, no doubt.

That is SO my life right now! Except that there’s a dog instead of a second cat, and my baby can’t jump on the bed yet, and my guy doesn’t say he’s tired – he asks for a quickie, and the 4.5 yr old is 5 kids ages 2-8, and I’m for the day by 6… I think I’ll go to bed now. =P

You are spot-on! Mommy-ears, starfish baby, older kid and animals…I have soooo been there! I will tell you that it does get better as everyone graduates to their own bed. The co-sleeping days were precious ones, though. Great job taking me down memory lane!!

This is brilliant….i only have one child and he’s now 7 but lady….trust me. I STILL REMEMBER. The starfish made me choke on my water! And lord if the cats don’t still do that every morning to me too…..really great! (the post….not the lack of sleep!)

This actually describes ME, not my other half!
I’m the one who sleeps like the dead (had major complications during the emergency c-section and nearly died, and after 10 months of recovery my body still doesn’t realise it should wake up to the baby and 5 year old mid-night).
My other half works LONG hours (hospitality) and I work from home (long hours too, but at least I can sit and watch movies while I work!). He does all the night shifts, because I don’t wake up at all.
KUDOS to my fiancee who does all the nightshifts with the kids…. from now on, I’ll have to try not to complain about being tired in the mornings!

May I make a small suggestion though to all you co sleepers? It’s just a little thing that will make all the difference. Get yourself a bed rail (one of those things that you put on the side of a childs bed to stop them rolling out) and put the baby to sleep on that side. Then, if you can ever get the baby to sleep you can nod off yourself without worrying about bub falling out of bed. Or having to tuck you arm into your underwear as one person commented….that really made me laugh and is what prompted this bit of unsolicited advice 🙂

Interestingly, my children are 14, 17 and 18 and I am still the one who gets up in the night if someone’s barfing or not home yet. Just last night, (as in it’s 6:30 a.m. and I’m up worried) my 18 year old stayed out all night without telling me and I hardly slept for worrying. I KNOW if my husband was home (he was away at work) he would have said something like “We can’t do anything about it so go back to sleep.” WOW…men ARE from Mars. For sure!!! In conclusion, I love the starfish baby. I remember that so clearly. Just grab a blanket (or dirty laundry that’s laying around cuz you’re too tired to do it) and fall asleep on the floor!

It’s even worse when your husband is a *light* sleeper. In addition to the kid(s) vying for your attention in the middle of the night, which you are having to deal with yourself, you get to listen to how aggravating it is for HIM to be woken up (and stay in bed while you’re dealing with the water, imaginary spiders, or not being able to find a stuffed bunny). Then even when you get the kid back to sleep in his own bed, you’re doing the “don’t move a muscle, don’t even breathe loud, is my nose making too much noise?” thing because you don’t want to hear it from the husband, either.

AND THEN when you and husband get home from work he is “so tired” from “not sleeping well” that he needs to go “lay down for a while,” and, at some point, he wants to talk to you about how “we” really need to do something to get the kid to sleep all night. ??!!

What’s with the baby sleeping in bed with you? Especially at an age where he can talk! You’d probably sleep better and have more to give if you had some time and space to yourself instead of becoming some sort of organ for your children. And what about intimacy with your husband? How do you maintain that with a child in bed with you? Then you women wonder why your husbands cheat on you. You’re not a woman anymore you’re just a mommy and all you can talk about is that. Balance ladies, balance!

I’ve trying not to respond to you without swearing. I am on medication that gives me low blood pressure. I have passed out trying to get out of bed in the middle of the night. My two year old climbs in our bed in the middle of the night, and half the time I sleep straight through it. No one KNOWS how to turn a baby into a respectable adult. No matter what anyone here does, their kid could turn into a douchebag. That includes you, and that includes me. We’re all doing the best we can.
As for intimacy with my husband, we’re like any other parents and take advantage of any time we can get the toddler to sleep before we pass out too.

Yep this is what it was like at our house too, except the cats would wake me up by having a cat fight under my bed once or twice a night, and my aging dog would need to be let out at least three times a night. After a while I could even tell the difference between a “child” creak and a “dog” creak. Ahhh, the memories! (although I don’t have a nursling now, I still don’t get much sleep….shhh don’t tell the other mothers….)

LOL…I totally agree. You’ve brought much of this on yourself by not even considering waking your husband to deal with much of this! Trust me I know, I have a 3.5 year old with autism who wakes all the time and guess what? We BOTH deal with that…he may sleep better but I know how to nudge him ever so soft (hard) so he gets up half the time! There are 2 parents for a reason…

This is my house, 5 year old, 10 month old, 2 cats, and there used to be a snoring dog (he just passed:( )This got me through my zombie day at work after a night like this plus baby diarrhea and multiple emergency diaper changes and a husband out of town and the 5 year old missing him at 2:30am. I sent this to him immediately, not that he will bother to read my emails while he is away “working”. Read your diaper one too, hilarious! Thanks for sharing!

OMG, I was just laughing so hard that I was crying…this is SO dead on with my life. Every.little.detail. except that I have a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old. Other than that – same. Priceless. Thanks so much for this, it totally made my week. : )

I love it! Especially the “Starfish” baby. I have twin boys so i’m rarely able to co-sleep with them, because I’d never get sleep with two “Starfishes” but when I do, its exactly like this! Only my husband snores and the demanding 4.5 yr old is our obnoxious cat George. LOL

I’m part of a facebook group called PumpEase hands-free pumping supports. I was wondering if i could share this blog with them?

I have to say, I’m very lucky because most mornings my hubby makes up for my sleepless night by watching the boys while I nap from 6am – 11am 🙂 I just pump and leave bottles for him and I get some rest <3 Best dad/hubby ever! He's only able to do this because he has a job that he gets to make his own hrs which are usually 12pm - 8pm

I’ve often wondered if it was some kind of switch in me that I’ve felt like could be shut off again. Next baby, if someone offers to sleep over-night to help the middle of the night crying, I want to take the offer!!
Thanks for proving my theory true – and get better soon!

That is my life. Has been for over a year. And I too, resist the urge to be completely pissed at my husband for being able to sleep! But seriously, I could have written this post. Baby, 4.5 yr old, cats, and everything! Amazing. ROTFLMAO!

Wow. This was my life for at least 4 years. Kids are 12 and 10 now. No more nursing, but sometimes I realize I have slept in three beds and ended up on the couch with a dog on top of me over a 7 hour night of “rest”.

Oh..my…goodness….this is one of the most hilarious and true depictions of life for Mom of 2 I have EVER seen. As the Mom of a 1 year old and 4.0 year old…I can TOTALLY relate!!! Getting my youngest in a crib does help…a little. I loved this…thank you!

i never post comments, but i HAD to after reading this, i love it…exactly what goes on in my house- breastfeeding baby who wakes up every couple of hours to feed but taking up most of my side of the bed, 4.5 yr old getting up to go to the toilet etc, and a husband who snores right the way through it all and wakes up saying that was a good night! no cats but a 2 yr old instead who thankfully doesn’t wake up often!

I can so relate to this! We have 5 kids (yes, I said 5…and no, we’re not done) ranging from 12 down to 6 weeks. Someone wakes me up at least 3 times a night, and DH was in the army and sleeps like a ROCK. It’s just not fair, but I guess it’s life with kids!

BRILLIANT!!!! laughed so flippin’ hard!!! thank you for the blow by blow fantastic illustrations..minus the cats and 4.5 yr old, we have the same life!!! this was the best read i have had in days..cheers!!!!

As a man/husband/father who sleeps lightly and regularly (at least 3 nights a week) endures nights that resemble yours – without the breastfeeding but with perhaps a little more Guantanamo sleep deprivation torture thrown in – I appreciated your cartoons very much! Is there a way to have one’s “spidey senses” surgically removed or have them discreetly implanted in one’s partner? You haven’t really lived until you’ve fallen out of bed after 3 hours of lying on the bed’s edge to accommodate two children 🙁 N.B. Try locking your cats in the laundry – at least the howls and meowing are somewhat less audible… T

This is my first time to your blog…this is the FUNNIEST post I’ve ever read. It brought be to tears! Just the other day I was telling my husband how great it is to be able to bring the covers up to my chin. I slept in a long-sleeved shirt every night when I was night nursing. The pictures are hilarious!!

You’re not alone, Kate. I recently blogged about this at godsmasterpieces.wordpress.com. We moms are allowed 2 non-consecutive sick days a year, and only with 6 months advanced notice and prior approval.

Amber, this is great, illustrations and all. You’ve spoken for all of us! (My husband complained this afternoon about being tired – after getting 12 HOURS of sleep last night to my 7. Thought of you.) 🙂

I enjoyed this so much … Thank you & your illustrations were pretty good too. I’m going to share this on our website http://www.milkmommymilk.com, our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/milkmommymilk & our twitter. My son starts actively nursing around 5am until we get up. I rarely ever get my body back. Lol. & then there are though moments when I in a half daze & notice that my son needs a diaper change & I do my best to undress him without waking him, throwing the wet cloth diaper on the floor & too sleepy to get another one… Leaving him bottom naked until the morning & praying that he doesn’t pee on me or the bed. Thank you for sharing!

I just had to comment. Wonderful post of a situation that seems, at the time, to go on forever. And I must say that 40 years later, I am so jealous of my sleep that I get downright mean if annyyoonne awakens me duringthe night. Except my adorable grandchildren, of course.

Love it! Our lives aren’t exactly the same (no cats, no older kid, didn’t cosleep), but the gist is there – our daughter could have been screaming in the middle of the night and hubby wouldn’t budge. There was only once, that was a pure miracle, that he actually woke up… I had been nursing our LO in the glider chair in our room, got up to put her back in the cradle, and I tripped on the footrest and fell backwards (hitting my head on the wall). Hubby was out of bed and over to my side before I hit the ground, and I didn’t even make a noise, really! I don’t know if I’d want him to wake up, though – he often will walk/talk in his sleep, so I don’t know if I’d be 100% sure he was actually awake enough to not put a diaper on the dog and let the kid out.

This was so funny! My youngest is 7 now but I remember that season of life all too well. My husband slept through EVERYTHING and was always confused why I was always so tired. With 3 kids born in a 3.5yr time frame, night time was a 3 ring circus.

Ha! I love your incentive idea!
My husband absolutely cannot shut off his brain to go to sleep. His solution is to put in his earbuds and listen to a podcast, puts him out in three minutes flat. Of course, ONE of us needs to be able to hear the kids so this is not a mommy option!

Sooo true… I have four kids & four dogs. We kennel trained out dogs after having the third child. Who’s 3 now. But I’m bfing a one month old & constantly awake all night from changings & feeding. I had a c-section, so my hubby learned to care fro the 3 yr. old at night thank goodness & he tends to him if he wakes now. I don’t work, but keeping up with 4 kids, 4 dogs, dishes, laundry, & cleaning is far more than most do in a days work. I miss sleep…

This is so true! I’m crazy lucky that my husband is not such a deep sleeper, but that doesn’t mean I sleep through the stuff he gets up to do, whether it’s taking the pre-schooler to the potty or clean up cat hairballs before the dog tries to eat it.

I think I can help. You are missing a key element, found in the “Parenting More Than One Kid” By-laws. It’s called the “Man-to-Man Defense Law” and it states:

“…if you are already sleeping with/nursing/attending to one child in the night, Parent #2 gets a gentle nudge/push/kick (and I’m using the term “gentle” loosely here, interpret as needed) in or on any available body part until he awakens to deal with the second kid. Under no circumstances should Parent #1 be expected to run a Zone Defense when another defender is on the field and capable of implementing the Man-to-Man. Being a sound sleeper is NOT an acceptable excuse for Parent #1 to be dealing with two kids AND cats in the night.”

Get that law into enforcement ASAP, and you’ll sleep better. And then he can talk about being tired in the morning. 😉

Oh My!! You just captured MY life!!!!!!!!! I have a 5 year old, and a 2.5 year old who still nurses, while I will no longer nurse after we are asleep she still likes to wake me up and ask for it. TOO FUNNY, about the hubs, soooooo how it is around here! And all too often I hear those dreadful words from his mouth after I have watched and listened to him sleep through a whole mess of kid drama! I’m now expecting #3, so no plans to sleep in my future, thanks for writing this…misery LOVES company 🙂

oh my, I laughed all the way through that. I know exactly how that is. Though my hubby gets up at 4 AM to go to a job he very very much dislikes to let me stay home with the kids, so I’m going to say we’re even esp. since on the weekends, when the baby wakes up for the day, he comes in and steals him away so I can sleep until the next nursing. But still–the sleep through anything is quite enviable. And to rizzthedad–if I could do any of that, I would, believe me.

This is the best on this subject I’ve ever seen! I laughed till I cried too! I am 63, was nursing and or pregnant with 3 for 10 years. When I was 50 I took on a 4 day old granddaughter who slept with me till she was 9. I laughed so hard at the starfish and the 10% of a king size bed! The the crappy pictures I loved the most!! God bless you!

Very funny but you know what fixes this problem? Put your baby in a crib!!! And if the baby wakes up in the middle of the night, nurse the baby and then put the baby back in the crib. Co-sleeping is not good for the Mother or Baby!

Love your blog! We have the opposite problem, unfortunately. Hubbie can’t sleep with baby in the bed, and wakes up grumpy the next morning, whereas I can feed her in my sleep half the time. We’ll wake the next morning and I say: ‘Hey, she only fed twice last night!’ and he’ll say: ‘What are you talking about? I counted 10 times!” Bub and I usually have to sleep in a separate room.

Amber: this blog is awesome and I especially love this post!! This one resonates with me as I have a 14mo nursing toddler who shares sleep with me. My hubby often sleeps in the guest room and we all sleep better for it. The dog divides his time between both rooms/beds. Lol. (this is Jennifer from CML course, btw)

good grief, it’s like you’re hiding in my bedroom. this happens every night with me!! well, replace the 4.5 year old with an angry cat who sits outside our closed bedroom door and meows at the top of her voice for 15 minutes every couple of hours or so…

Love this. Our comic strip would be similar except it would end with my well-rested husband getting up to play golf at crack-of-dawn in the morning while I try to keep the early rising 3-year-old from waking the sleepyhead baby 🙂

Apparently I live in your world! This is SO our house, except that my 14 month old wakes at least 4x a night to nurse, and my 4.5 yr old wakes between 2-4 x a night to have a ‘snuggle’ which then necessitates my escorting her back to bed via the bathroom. And if I so much as breathe too loudly the baby wakes up.
Love your work!

Oh… and I love when my husband complains about not having enouhg room in our king bed, even though he is taking up half the bed while the baby and I share the other half (and I am stuck in between both kickers!!!)

I feel ya…I only have one kid but my hub is an insomniac and also, on the nights when he does sleep, an early riser. So many, many nights any block of sleep my daughter accidentally allows me gets interrupted by his tossing and turning, putting the radio on, etc. Then he gets up at 5 am, turns on lights, sits on the bed to put on his shoes & socks, etc. Usually he’s up before the alarm, which is great except for the mornings he forgets to turn it off and is in the shower when it sounds, at which point it usually wakes up our daughter before I manage to kill it.

Fortunately he also travels for work, so when he’s out of town, like tonight, I can theoretically get a better night’s sleep and even sleep in tomorrow morning. Maybe all the way to 6:30! In practice, though, it usually just means I’m frittering away the evening online after baby girl finally goes to bed around 10:30. Like tonight. But I will check before I go to sleep and make sure he didn’t leave the alarm turned on.

I feel your pain sister. It’s true. The tossing & turning, trying to get up after bsby sleeps without waking him, it’s like Mission: Impossible. Also crawling back in to whatever space he & your husband have left for you, but after a while you realize there is NO way you are going fall asleep in this awful position, & spend the next 1/2 hour trying to wriggle into some meaningful space for your body. Then you realize it’s impossible, just hope baby wakes soon so you have excuse to move him and actually find someplace to sleep on the bed.

Seriously…..teach your kids to sleep in their own bed. You are creating such a terrible habit. Your child needs to learn to sleep at a few months on their own, how to soothe themselves back to sleep. Your time with your husband is being stolen. I can’t believe how many people do this. amazing. I have 4 kids who have awesome sleep habits and they never shared a bed with us. That belongs to me and my husband.

OMG I just loved this – a delightful and yet harrowing post because it was just so hilarious and so very, very true! Well done! Fantastic crappy pictures! I loved baby starfish and am going to share this on my FB page. (-:

I emailed this post to my husband today with the message replace “cats who meow” with “dogs who snore”. And this was his email response back:

“LOL!!!!!!!!!! That is exactly (except the 4.5 kid) how it works. I completly get it and I’m sorry that you can’t always get the sleep you need! I will also never say to you “I’m so tired”. I will really try to be more Sensitive!”

The solutions? Kill the cats… no really… kill them. they are completely useless (except as fertilizer) and you can’t eat them and you won’t go to gaol (if you do it nicely and/or no one see’s). Then buy a cot and discipline the 4.5 year old. 1 more month of hell while the children learn thier rightful place and then you get to sleep. The husband would have come up with these solutions in the 1.5 minutes he was awake at 2am. I could draw pictures but they would not be funny.

@rizzTheDad – Your advice is quite helpful, thank you. At one time or other I have tried each of those and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.

Overall, I’ve been blessed with a very helpful hubby. He gets up with me and baby at night. He gets baby from the crib while I take a bathroom break. Because if I don’t pee before nursing, the baby will decide to use my bladder as a trampoline. Our first child is only 8months old right now. As much as we’d love to co-sleep it is difficult in a queen size bed because if we did, baby would nurse all night long. Did I mention he gets night sweats? Yep, we know he’s “really asleep” when he gets super warm and starts sweating. No matter how we dress him for bed, he still sweats.

Then between 6 – 8am we’re up for the day. With teething now it’s hard to time naps. But the earlier the better ;-).

This is why I lock the kitten in the guest room for the night still. So hilarious. Though my honey rarely complains of being tired and often gets up before me in the morning and makes me coffee. And though I do glare at his back during the 4am nursing cycle, I also note that he’s squashed against the wall. Though cozily covered up to his ears in blanket. I wonder if I will ever have warm shoulders again?

same here i have 3 kids and a dog that barks and snoresi n his sleep!
a 6 yr old that moves ALOT in bed i can hear him from across the hallway, a 3 yr old that still comesi nto my room at 5am to get i bed with us while i have my 4 month old there since i was too slepy to put her back in her crib. yup these are my nights

This is the funniest and most realistic post ever!! 🙂 This is SO like a typical night for me, only I have a now-3-yr-old, a just-about-2-yr-old AND a 2.5 month old baby, and a snoring bulldogge puppy that each take their turns waking me up and/or keeping me up throughout the night! And when they’re not doing said waking, hubby is talking in his sleep! lol I love this post – it made me giggle and nod with *complete* understanding and shared frustration! hehehe 🙂

I just found you so I have to read a lot of them….I am laughing so loudly…luckily, I am home alone…my favorite part was the starfish…and of course the,”I am so tired.” I remember the mornings after……I finally destroyed my husband’s ability to speak his thoughts out loud in the morning with one deadly daggers-shooting-from-my-eyes look…he caught it right between the eyes, purely by accident, but it was so very effective, we had four more children…..mmmm, and he began getting up first(EVERY day)and serving breakfast so that I could go back to sleep…..he had a lot of fun with the kids in the morning(not that he had a choice, of course!)You are HILARIOUS!!!!I want a whole book of your Crappy Drawings!

Don’t be surprised..it is simply a lack of similiar experiences. The more babies the more flexible and creative you become as parents, believe me…each baby is unique , and smart parents adapt quickly, fulfill the baby’s needs, then siblings’, then Dad’s, and finally Mom’s. Sleep is so important it can be the most important criteria for changing the original ‘plan.’ Readers may get another point of view from your blog..and they are trying to enjoy a little humor…laughing feels so good.Some cultures believe that keeping babies and toddlers close to relatives at night, teaches the little ones the value of co-dependence within a family…the goal is a rested and happy family….people all over the world do not have the luxury of separate rooms for babies, yet it all seems to work out fine. Adults do not have the same sleep habits they had as teens, or as toddlers, or as babies…we all change and adapt over time . Flexible habits are probably ideal, but it is interesting how different families work.

Oh my stars that is funny! It is exactly like that – and the fact that you have it in pictures makes it funnier.

I love the way it ends with the father who has been sleeping like he is in a coma for 12 hours complaining he is tired.

Love it so very much. And dad will also tell his friends that “your” baby sleeps through the night from 4 weeks – where you remind him, he has slept through the night since the baby was 4 weeks, the baby on the other hand is now 24 months and still not sleeping through the night.

Usually the conversation ends as I smack him behind the head and go tsk-tsk!

OMG, this is SO right on. This was my morning smile for sure. I will never understand men’s ability to be sound asleep and snoring almost before their heads hit the pillow. Thanks for a good start to my day.

I am glad that part of my life is past and gone but the husband part is still totally accurate when the kids do come and get me because they have either peed the bed or have a bad dream. Now I sleep in their bed until they are back asleep…which honestly works better…the urge to suffocate my husband with a pillow while he snores is gone.

If her baby is anything like mine was the moment you would move him he’d be awake and nothing other then nursing would sooth him to sleep. He grew out of it. He’s now 2.5 and sleeps on his own. Some of us co-sleep to get as much sleep as we can even if it might seen unproductive to others.

You are welcome to your own opinion but do not put down others. Co-sleeping has many many benefits. I co-slept and my kids do not have any terrible habits due to it. They now sleep in their own beds.
Everyone has their own way…it may not work for you but it works for many others.

Oh this is sooooo brilliant!!!! All though it has been a couple of years since I was at that stage I still remember every single moment and this was what I went through about 6 nights out of 7 each week. The nest part is when hubby awakes and declares how tired HE is!!!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!!!

OMG i absolutley looooove the drawings, and this is my life exactly…. cept i have 3 step children that i hear all night :S Good Luck on getting sleep, i will sent sleeping vibes and punching vibes to the Husband!!

So funny and so true! But even with all this, I found I got better sleep with the baby in my bed instead of putting him in his crib and listening to him cry. When the baby is nursing during the night, you barely have to wake up. It’s true that women hear everything after they have babies, whereas men can still go to sleep easily and not hear anything during the night.

I can’t believe how so many people can relate to these stories, and so spot on. You take the words right our of my mouth. It’s an amazing feeling to know I’m not the only one going through this, in fact so many of us are. I will remember that the next time I’m about to lose all control.

“Starfish baby” kills me, this is so true! is one thing my husband and I laugh anoyt the most. We bought our self a king size bed with the second baby and we both still sleep on the edge of the bed. My hubby also took a foot to the face just last night.
Im so glad I found you! I heart you!

OMGs! This is SO our family (but without an older child or cats) a couple of years ago when I was still nursing. When those words come out of my hubby’s mouth I STILL want to stab him in the eyes – LOL!

This is my house minus the 4.5 yr old and add an overly clingy dog. I’ve even had to have a conversation with my husband about being able to complain about anything he wants just NOT about being tired… NO NO NO!!!

Haha this made me giggle so much!! Although my 9 month old sleeps well I still do not mange to get a good sleep!! Last night I ended up with only 2 hours sleep, mostly on the couch trying to watch tv to make me fall asleep, I had been to bed after I got home from work but was pondering too much to sleep, then just as I was just falling to sleep my daughter decides that yep she would wake up and scream the house down, worse night to do it. Then this morning my hubby says to me “why didn’t you come to bed last night” Even though I was having a full on convo with him when I hopped into bed!!

Oh and the cat thing? Our cats now get locked out of our bedroom after they pissed us off one too many times lol, (and I am ready to lock them outside at night now cause they seem to cause chaos in the house at times.) But at 6am when they hear my hubbys alarm go off they are right at the door meowing for a feed gah!!

This used to be my life. I’d like to say that I miss it, because that would be hardcore, but I honestly don’t. But it does bring back some happy memories. I am glad to know, all those nights I layed in bed praying I would get some sleep, and secretly hoping that something would wake up my husband, I was not the only one in the world doing that very thing at that very moment.

I can totally relate to the part where you’ve got to fight little feet kicking ya in the head and face all night. I’ve been successfully chasing a pair of feet for four and a half years. Although, the end is near. All day kindergarten can really knock a kid out! So there is light at the end of your tunnel! Then you will miss that set of feet. Life’s so wierd like that! Very cute btw! 😀

Awww, this wouldn’t be as charming if it weren’t for the “crappy pictures” 🙂 When my husband offers to wake up with the baby in the morning, I try not to laugh in his face…(Oh you mean after I glare at you throught the darkness for 20 minutes…?)

YES. You are so brilliant for putting into words and images what has been going on in my house for a year now. My DH is certifiably dead 10 hours a night and wakes up and complains about how tired he is. I made him read this and hopefully he’s learned to shush about it.
I love your blog so much! lol

Fantastic!!! I have a 4 year old and 2.5. As soon as I start drifting off one will come, sometimes Mr 4 will go get his little sister and they will both assault me in the middle of the night, when I’ve finally fallen asleep, and then try play with me, whilst I accept their presence because I am just desperate to sleep. Eventually I may manage a few hours of sleep before the alarm goes off, need to get up, get kids and myself ready and get to work on time – do you think they will wake up. No and Mr 4 turns around when I wake him up – “I’m so tired Mummy” – hmmmm…. I wonder why!

Wow, based on this and all the comments I must be the only one who actually takes charge of my household and teaches a respect for sleep these days. Once my kids were over 6 months old, they were sleeping in their own beds and never brought into our bed, except in the mornings for super cuddle time (when they are sick I’ll sleep with them on a blow-up bed in their rooms, or on the pull-out couch) – everyone needs and deserves their own space, and they love their beds at night (taught by example – mommy does love her bed!). It was always extra exhausting for the first few nights while getting into the groove of that, but so worth it, for everyone involved. We also have 4 cats, and they were taught to sleep in their beds at night too (we have a designated night-time cat room, and they stay their from bedtime to breakfast – they even go to it on their own at night). We are ALL happier and easier to deal with during the days because of these arrangements. Please don’t complain about situations that you have brought down upon yourself by not exercising some basic authority. You made this bed, now you sleep in it (pun intended). If your kids exercise this much control over you now, I can’t even imagine the teenage years!

Wow. Judgmental much? I’m glad you didn’t live in the 1700/1800s, or in the nomad days when everyone slept in the same pile of animal hides on the ground together. Good thing they demanded respect from their babies huh.
Every family makes the choices that are best for their families, it doesn’t mean you give up the right to ever complain about it. I’m sure you’ve never made a complaint ever about your perfect children.

I totally agree with you. My cat was taught to sleep in the basement in a doll bed. He went to the door at night and wanted to go down to bed! It was a lot easier for everyone. I also taught my kids that bed time meant bedtime. As you said, it took awhile (kids LOVE to test limits), but consistency (from me) and consequences (for them) created peace for all. Trust me, if the women in tents from long ago could do the same, they would have! My grandmother, born in 1887, shared how her own mother had over 14 children, dieing shortly after the last one was born; it was no picnic before birth control, and you just did what you had to do. It doesn’t mean they liked it!

I love this blog, I love the crappy pictures, I so remember those day raising four kids. They are grown up and have been away from home for years. I would like to interject with something though. Please don’t keep the baby in bed with you. I live in Wisconsin and there have been so many deaths of babies because of people rolling over on them. You are right though, you are not sleeping anyway but still. Keep that precious little life safe….a caring grandma

OMG!!! LOL! Thank you for writing this! SO COMPLETELY ACCURATE! It really doesn’t do much for the relationship though to listen to the hubs always complaining that he’s tired when he obviously has no idea what that word really means.

Yup that’s me xcept with dogs. Baby and dogs will sometimes tag team me. This was hilarious and so true. Hubby sleeps thru anything. I crank up the baby monitor sometimes when the baby cries and he still doesn’t get up. Bugs the heck out of me.

For the first time in my son’s life, my husband just put him back to sleep. No mama, no breast. So instead of getting some sleep like I should, I stayed up to read the archives. I laughed so hard I…well…see the laughing before and after kids crappypictures entry. How many nights have I laid motionless with feet in my face and a desperate need to run to the bathroom but terrified of waking the little Monkey? And wondering why my hubby can sleep through anything.

Oh, this is hilarious and really hits home, other than the fact that my hubby sleeps in a separate bed in a separate bedroom two rooms down so he sleeps all night without hearing a peep. And yes, I want to strangle him when he dares to utter the words, “I’m so tired” (my baby nurses every 30 minutes – 2.5 hours in the evening and at night). He gets 7-9 hours of sleep a night, every night. I haven’t slept that long in over a year now! Despite loving my four cats, we are forced to lock them out since I might actually strangle them in the wee hours of the morning. Anyway, thanks for the laugh – I needed it today!

This post is so comforting since I know now that my husband is not the only damn deep sleeper who has the nerve to say OH POOR ME I’M SO TIRED AFTER HAVING SLEPT ALL NIGHT, BOO HOP. It means I’m less likely to murder him the next time it happens, yay, thanks!

Brilliant – and I completely agree with the previous comment about juggling baby from one boob to the other and the yoga poses.
We also have a cat who demands food at 5am and a 4 year old!
Spot on. More please!

So so true I am sharing this humour with my youngest daughter who can now relate to me when I told how how bad her dads snoring was and how he never woke for a feed in the night but he was always tired the next day!!!!!!

HAHAHAHA!!! I know you wrote this awhile ago but I had to leave a comment anyways; you have my life!! My husband and I both just peed ourselves laughing while reading this post. Twice. We even sleep on the same sides of the bed as you guys. LMAO, thank you, that made my WEEK =)

I’ve been in a grumbly about my wonderful husband mood lately. Can’t figure it out. So I came on here to re-read your father’s day post. It so completely describes him. Mood improving. Next one below that one was this one. Gosh it cracks me up…and completely describes what’s up lately. I feel better. Sigh. Thanks for your starfish baby. And for all of these posts. They never fail to crack me up…and to describe my life.

This is by far my favorite. I love this post its just like my life and all the women here I guess LOL. I am glad I am not alone. And the hubby thing, I get “I couldn’t sleep all night” really and the cat was the one snoring the whole night.
LOVE YOU and LOVE your drawings and posts, they truly make my day and make me less insane then I think or seem.

I’m guessing that most mommy-blog readers already know about you, but I linked to this post in my blog post today anyway. Along with a photograph of what a four and a half year old starfish looks like. 😉

we do not co sleep for this reason. bed with children in it is torture and I hate it but cribs work better for us. Our first son WOULDN’T sleep with me, even at birth (I didn’t sleep for 5 days after his birth then moved crying newborn to his day nap bassinet and he slept 6 hour stretches at night from then on) he much preferred being in his own little bed.
As such I have had mercifully had few sleepless nights, just the usual sick child/ teething times and even then I can usually settle them back in the crib quickly. The only time I have no sleep is when we go places for a few days and so I now HATE holidays because I am so tired I’m unable to enjoy them because he only likes his little bed. We aren’t even going to try to sleep with our next one due in a week. It wasn’t worth it for us.

What did work was feeding every two hours during the day and offering a pacifier at night (I’d planned to not use one- ha!). No more constantly waking kid just an early start the next day about 6am.

Oh my goodness, this is exactly how it is at our house, except without the nursing baby. I swear my husband falls asleep on top of the bed and there is no way to wake him. Then I’m stuck taking care of any little things that need to get done before bed. Then I finally fall asleep, and there’s some strange noise in the living room as one of the cats has knocked some fairly expensive item off a shelf. I finally go back to sleep only to be awoken around 3 or 4 AM when the cats decide they want to eat – but instead of meowing, they bite my toes, shins, calves, inner thighs, etc. until I get up. I can’t even imagine having a nursing child right now.

OMG I tought for a moment that you have being spying on me!!! hahahaha!!! Why is that husbands doesn’t wake up for anything? Last night the dog was following a frog on the yard and barking at it(from 1am-4:00am, and me thinking”please don’t wake up the baby!!!”)…plus nursing nursing nursing and trying to take baby-starfish back to her side of the bed…and then “good morniiiing”…My husband asked me “at what time did you woke up this morning?”…eehem…I think I never was really asleep!!!!…so zombie mode all day long!

this is awesome! My youngest is now 7 and I had ALMOST forgotten the horror of the “other years”… you said/drew it perfectly.. fricking awesome. Now I’m gonna go pour a vodka and try to forget about it all over again. 😉

Who are you and how long have you been spying on me… Lol… I was cracking up reading this because it is spot on! Hubby can sleep like the dead, replace the 4.5 year old boy with a 4.5 year old girl, and exchange one cat for a dog, and you are me. I keep telling myself I still get more sleep than my non breast feeding non cosleeping mommy friends, but that doesn’t help me when I am TIRED!!

I TOTALLY feel for you. I have a three year old, one year old, and 37 weeks pregnant. And EVERYTIME he ever says he is tired, I just want to drop kick him. Hehehe. I love him, and he probably is tired to, but he sleeps like a brick, I wake up with three kids, if the fetus even LETS me sleep at all. Hehehe

My husband goes to bed at 9:30/10 everynight. I don’t get in until midnight (if lucky) or later (usually much later). My son is really difficult to get to sleep (if someone says sleep train I will stab them. Have you sleep trained a 22 month old while cranky daddy sleeps ̵